The Zach Lowe Show - The Knicks' Finals Run, and Most Iconic Calls With Mike Breen! Plus, Spurs-Thunder Game 6 Primer.

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

Zach is joined by Mike Breen to discuss the Knicks' run, his most iconic calls, and how he’ll approach the NBA Finals this year. Then, Mo Dakhil joins to break down how the Thunder beat the Spurs defense in Game 5 and what each team needs to do to win Game 6. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (2:09) Mike Breen joins the show! (4:50) What will you remember from the Knicks' run to the Finals? (13:00) Random list of alums it would be cool to see at the Finals (24:51) What are your memories of last year’s Eastern Conference finals? (37:23) On the double-bang Curry shot (45:28) Do you approach this Finals any differently with the Knicks being in it? (47:49) Mo Dakhil joins the show! (50:19) Thoughts on Wemby’s Game 5 performance (1:01:26) How have the Thunder beaten the Spurs defense? (1:17:05) I expect Wemby to come out like a man possessed Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Mike Breen and Mo Dakhil 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. On the Zach Lowe show, the Knicks are in the finals. This is not a drill. The New York Knicks are in the finals for the first time in 27 years. You already know that.

It's old news. The calves were swept. Analytically, it could be 2-2. I'm not sure when the analytical game 5 is, but the actual series is over. And we have a lot of time to reflect on the Knicks' long journeys, multiple journeys.

There's been like 10 different iterations of the Knicks in the last 20 years, 25 years. And Mike Breen, has been around for all of it. One of the great guys in the sport, one of the great storytellers in the sport. He was, of course, on the East Finals for ESPN.

He's going to be on the whole finals for ABC slash ESPN. And he's going to tell, he's here to tell tons of stories, reflect on the Knicks, reflect on stuff that's happened in his life. Great conversation. And then the next game of the year is probably going to be tonight by the time you listen to this.

Maybe tomorrow, if you listen to it right away. Game 6, Spurs Thunder. Mo de Kiel is here to break down game five. What did the Thunder figure out? What did the Spurs miss in terms of opportunities? What's going to happen in game six? Who's going to adjust? What's the counter to the counter?

Who's going to win? Are we going to see a game seven? Can we see a game seven? We get into all that coming up on the Zach Lowe show. The Zach Lowe show is brought to you by Fanduel. The conference finals are here. Think you know how it'll go down? Take your shot with Fandul and get closer to the action.

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Call 1-888-7-8-9-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. To the Zach Lowe show, the New York Knicks, are in the finals for the first time in 2016. years and to chronicle it all. How many finals is this for you now, Mike Breen? 21, I think. Wow. And the first on national TV with the New York Knicks.

How are you doing, sir? Thanks for spending some time with us. First off, love the hat. There you go. And that's the sign of a real fan. The hat is still on despite the difficulties that we are encountering all season long. As a fellow Met fan, I'm, I suffer. with you. It's not been, it's not been fun. I did show my daughter yesterday some footage of

Francisco Lindor taking infield practice and she got very excited for his return. So she's, her spirits are still high. Mine are not. I forgot what it was like to be just an angry, burn it to the ground fan, frustrated. And so it's fun, it's fun to feel that nastiness in my soul, Mike Breen. Well, you know, it's, and I always say this, and I told this to my kids because they, since they were little, they were Nick fans, and they experienced a lot of rough years. And I always kept saying to them, these type of rough years, when it finally turns, that's what makes it so special. And they're experiencing that now. And even, you know, a couple of years ago that run to the National League Championship Series was so much fun for the Mets.

But that's, you sign up with that, with your heart to a franchise and to a team. And you know you're going to have heartbreak and you know you're going to have complete. jubilation. Yeah, I went through the Knicks sort of last 25 years yesterday on my Nix make the finals podcast. There were nine straight sub 500 seasons, I think, from 2002 to 2010. Then the six years, like, post-mello peak and pre-tibs were just so utterly depressing and forgettable. It was like the NICS existed over here and the rest of the NBA was operating as normal over here. And then Brunson comes and takes. And, Tibbs comes and Randall is here and the trades happen.

And it's just this continuous functional improvement to this moment. And you're there in Cleveland the other night when they complete the sweep, completely obliterate the Cavs just like they obliterated the Sixers and obliterated the Hawks in the last three games of that series. And you give this emotional interview with Monica McNutt, who was there covering the game for MSG and just sort of what it means to Knicks fans after all the suffering to finally be back at the pinnacle. And I just, I saw the interview,

it was very emotional, but I wonder, like, what are your other memories from that game? I don't know if there's a conversation with Clyde Frazier from after the game, off camera that you'll take with you. I don't know if you even went into the Knicks locker room

to sort of see what the mood was in there after the game. If you talked to Brunson, anything like that? Well, first off, I did speak to Clyde after. I spoke to some of the other players who were there, the former players who were there.

And the joy that they're having, watching this team play the way they're playing, not just the success, but it's how they play the game. That really struck me. Clyde was really emotional after the game. And he's one that rarely compares any team to his squad, and he feels there's so many similarities.

And I said this to Monica that night. I've never heard him compare a player to Willis Reed. He holds Willis in that high regard, the way he revered that man. And he thinks Jaylen Brunson has a lot of similarities in terms of leadership and his approach as Willis Reed. So that really has struck me. And then afterward, in talking some of the current players,

it's amazing how, yeah, they're happy, but there's no way they're satisfied. I mean, they really have that mode of, okay, yeah, we'll celebrate. We've had each other on the back tonight, but let's get to work and get, ready for the next one. Yeah, I think it was, you know, it was almost anti-climactic because of just how lopsided every series has been since game three of the Hawks series and how lopsided game

four of the Cleveland series was. The Cavs just let go of the rope and the Knicks were very happy to pull them over the cliff or whatever. In my head, psychoanalyzing everything, I'm like, I kind of think it's cool that it's anticlimactic and that there is going to be this long break between the Knicks winning the East and the finals while these other two teams slug it out. Because mentally, to me, just as a neutral person, I'm like, it kind of reinforces to the Knicks and their players that, yeah, okay, they did this thing. That ended up being like not that big of a deal. The actual big deal is the next thing that's coming.

And I do wonder if there's like a mind trick that can happen when you don't get too carried away with winning 12 playoff games. And remember, actually, it's very clear the goal is 16, though. Right. this. Like, let's get this one out of the way, and then we can start thinking about the next. It's just, it's amazing all three of those games. I think three different players, I think it's Josh Hart, McKell Bridges, and I know it's Jane Lambrunson, in the three clinching games, did not play a second in the fourth quarter, not a second. And when you think about that,

going into the playoffs, if you would have told somebody that, there's just, there's just no way. And it's, again, it's the way they take care of business. They're so serious. They're so focused. And the other three things on all three games in Atlanta, in Philadelphia, and in Cleveland, the amount of Nick fans, thousands, thousands of Nick fans are in that arena. So in some ways, it felt like they were clinching at home. It's just, it's an incredible run. And remember going into the playoffs, some people thought Atlanta would beat them. Some people thought Philadelphia would beat them.

Some people thought with Cleveland. And that's fine. Everybody makes predictions. But to not just win those series, but to dominate the way. they've dominated. It's historic. It's absolutely historic what they're doing. Yeah, the fans traveling thing is cool. And Nix fans are obviously, like I've said on this podcast all through this playoff run, like this is a super smart basketball city. It is a basketball city. Basketball is a city game. Knicks fans are very smart. There's also just like a ton of them because

New York is a giant place. And so obviously that means more of them will be sprinkled around as expats in other cities. And I have friends who, I mean, friends who have gone to some Nix playoff games, who has the playoffs have gone on, like random just buddies who are Nix fans, who have said to me, like, it's actually going to be cheaper for us to go to Cleveland

or go to San Antonio or go to Oklahoma City and buy a plane ticket and a hotel room that is to actually go to a Nix game. So I think I wonder how much of that is actually playing into Nix fans showing up on the road. No doubt. But you know, Zach, I can't tell you how many people have told me,

you know, the 1970 and the 73 Knicks. That's why I fell in love with basketball. That's where I became a basketball fan and a Nick fan for life. This is happening again. There are so many young kids who are now watching this, who are falling in love with the game, who are falling in love with the team because of the way this team is playing.

I go back to the hotel after the game the other night. And so with three different families, father and three kids, father, wife, two kids, that all drove from New York, seven hours, however long it takes, some from New Jersey. And they were, you could see by the kids that they will be Nick fans

for the rest of their life. They will be NBA fans for the rest of their life. And so much of it is because of Jalen Brunson and the way he plays and the way he carries himself. But it's the whole Nick team

and it's the style that they play. It's just such a beautiful style of basketball that they have, they have made so many, so many people to be Nick fans and basketball fans for the rest of their lives. So I'm going to do the dumb thing where I project my own personal experience onto the larger world, but I live in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and my daughter is about to leave elementary school. She's gone six years at the same school. So I've been walking her to school for six years. And I've obviously, like, when I see basketball jerseys on kids, you know,

my brain just sort of registered like, oh, it's a bam out of bio jersey. I wonder why that guy has a Bam out of Bio jersey. And when she first started going to this school, number one by far was Curry. Number two was LeBron. Number three has probably been lamello ball over the course of her six years at school. And now it's like it's Brunson and it's not even close. Like on these on these playoff game days, it's mostly boys, unfortunately. But like half the boys will come out wearing Nick's jerseys.

And 75% of those will be Brunson jerseys. But what's also started to happen is, or T-shirts, you see now Josh Hart jerseys and O'GN and Obie jerseys. And like jerseys of guys that like, those are not, those are, they're better than role players, but they're not the kind of guys you think like a nine-year-old kid is going to have an O'GN and Obie jersey. And those are starting to get sprinkled around the playground. Like, you're absolutely right that this team is going to breed a generation of it. Hopefully locally, these kids are now going to be Knicks fans and not like kids process. the game today where they're like fans of an individual player more than a team. I think I think

you're right that there's just going to be like an old school team fandom going on. Yeah. And that's a great point about the team aspect of it because, you know, Steph Curry was, you'd go in every arena in the country. And if the warriors are on the road or obviously if they're home, there's nothing but Curry jerseys throughout. And it's, it's you get them, usually like seven or eight years old when you can really make an impression on a young boy or or a young girl in terms of where their allegiance is going to go for the rest of their lives. You know, all the kids that were born in like 1988, when the Bulls were winning all the championships, they're all Jordan. They're all Jordan fans because that's when he was at his height.

But it was mostly Jordan. But this Nick team does have, they have the other personalities. And I give a lot of the credit to Brunson, because Brunson, as you know, when he gives an interview, when you ask him about himself, he gives the most bland, When you ask him about the success of the team, he'll even give you a bland cliche answer because he never wants to get ahead of himself. But ask him about one of his teammates, and he gives you great insight and gives you great comments about him. And I think that's a big part of it, is that he has shared everything in terms of the success of the team by always talking about his teammates. Most of the finals that you have done for ESPN ABC were with Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson as your broadcast partners, both of whom have deep, deep ties to the Knicks.

I wonder, have you been hearing regularly from them during this playoff run? And particularly, I mean, Jack Van Gundy was the coach the last time they were in the finals. Have you been talking to those guys? Yeah, I actually sent Jeff a text today. I saw a video of the time during the, the 99 run when they went to the finals, was the first time Madison Square Garden chanted Jeff Van Gundy. And it was everybody.

It echoed through. It's one of the coolest moments I can remember. And he's another one, always deflected praise, always. And there's a look on his face. They show the camera on him, and you could tell it meant something to him. Now, he talked afterward, of course, what he said, that meant so much to my family. But you could tell it meant something to him.

So he's still, his heart is still in a lot of ways there. And I've seen, he thinks they have a legitimate shot to win in the finals coming up. There's no question they have a legitimate shot to win. To me, that question was answered by the end of the second round. They went from long shot punchers chance to even against a healthy Thunder team, a decent chance. And now the Thunder aren't healthy. The Spurs are, I have some guards playing through injuries.

We'll see who comes out of that series. but I think there's no question the Knicks can win the NBA title. And I'm going to be very interested to see who's actually favored when it happens. But speaking of Van Gundy and Mark, are there any, the Knicks have alums, so many alums at every game. I mean, Stefan Marbury almost played in one of the games by accident when he ran off the floor, ran out to the floor. Is there an alumni that you haven't seen or hasn't been in the fold that you're kind of

hoping for like it would be very cool if this person suddenly appeared at the NBA finals as like part of the Knicks alumni group? Well, you would love to see Charles Oakley make a return. That's been such an ongoing and just such an unfortunate situation that happened. So he's one that you think of because he was such a big part of those 90 Knicks. But it's amazing every year. And they've done an amazing job of bringing them back and making them feel welcome. there's not just like five or six.

There's like 20 per game now. And if you watch them on the sidelines, they're so into the game. Patrick Ewing was so overjoyed the other night. And obviously the Clyde Fraser's Bill Bradley's there all the time. It's just cool to see Bernard King, Larry Johnson. They were at Radio City Music Hall. And I think LaTrell's... That was very cool.

They were at radio. And there was one shot we put on our telecast. Knicks went on one of those runs, and they go up like 26, and they had a shot of Bernard King, and you see Bernard King saying, it's over, and it's the second quarter. He gave the Vince Carter. Right, exactly. So it's a great thing to see. And I give credit to Leon Rose and the organization, William Wesley. What they've done is they've made those guys feel so welcome coming back. And that's a great thing for an organization. Teams are trying to do it. San Antonio is great like that. The Spurs do that as well.

But the amount, it's not just some players, it's a boat of players that come back. Here are some players that I would like to see, some alumni I would like to see come back, of both superlative guys and just random, like, oh, I remember this guy was on the Knicks, it would be funny to see him at a game. I want a Phil Jackson appearance at one of these games. Obviously, he was the GM or president during a tumultuous period, but also a member of the 1973 championship team. Pat Riley?

Could we get a Pat Riley like, you know, like Olive Branch thrown out? I mean, why not, right? Joe Kim Noah, Olive Branch. He's a New Yorker. He'd be brief and not, not, did not go great here. He was to a couple of games this year. Okay.

Yeah, he did come to a couple of games. And Bill Jackson and Pat Riley, you know, they both were such an integral part of some of the finest moments. ever. And yes, it didn't end well for Phil when he left as an executive. Obviously, when Pat left as well, it didn't end well. But most Nick fans in those cases, they only remember the good points. And I think what Riley did was extraordinary in the 90s and Phil Jackson being a part of the only two championships. So I would love to see them come back as well. I want to see Van Gundy too. And I know, you know, Jeff better than I do. He'll be, I don't want to be a distraction. I don't want to,

you know, but I mean, like he was the coach during the last finals. He was the guy the year before who grabbed Delonzo Morning's leg and just like, I want to see him back in the garden for this. You know, and he was so beloved because he was the underdog. The guy that, okay, Don Nelson's fired. We'll stick the assistant Jeff Van Gundy in. And Jeff would be the first one to tell you, he would have not returned if Alan Houston doesn't hit that shot in game five in Miami and instead winds up being one of the great

coaches in Nick history. and I think one of the great coaches now, I know he's up for a couple of jobs. Portland and Orlando would be out of their minds not to hire him because you hire Jeff Van Gundy. I don't know what your team's ceiling is, but you will reach it if he's your head coach. And I think it's a disgrace that he hasn't been a head coach

over the past couple of years because he has so much to offer. And it'd be, I think it'd be a wonderful thing. Now, Tibbs is too recent, and there's too much, too many hard, feelings there, I think. But, you know, the other, I always like when teams that get to the next level celebrate the guys who brought them up to the first level that they had to get to, wouldn't it be cool if Julius Randall and Dante DiVincenzo, the castaway Nova Nick showed up

at the finals? I think that would be cool too. Why not? It's New York. Everybody comes through New York. And if you put them on the big screen, they'd get a huge ovation. And Timson and Julius Randall, this, you know, Leon Rosie takes over a franchise that was in disarray that was basically relevant outside of New York to the rest of the NBA, irrelevant, that is. And Tibbs and Julius Randall, they started the turnaround. Tibbs of what he brought, the culture that what he brought, and Julius was the star player that first year. And I think most Nick fans remember that. And those guys should deserve, they should get praise if they return. I don't think they're going to be. Hopefully, even Genzos surgery's going well. You know, you mentioned about Jeff, too.

Like when Jeff was an assistant coach all those years, that's when I first started working as a as a Nick broadcaster. And I was trying to learn the NBA. I learned more from that man about the NBA because assistant coaches have more time to help with the broadcasters. And he just, he was so giving in terms of the information and teaching me about NBA basketball. And then when he became head coach, he didn't change. He never changed. And his post-game press conferences on the MSG network, they were like must-see TV. Because you could never, you never know what was going to come out of his mouth, whether it was a win or whether it was a loss. It was compelling. And I also remember, too, he would, before the games, I'd like to pop into his office just to get a couple

of thoughts on the game. And he always had a ball and he was bouncing a ball off the wall and just willing to share everything they knew about the game. Just a great basketball line. Yeah, you know, people talk about all these guys are always thinking X's and O's and always thinking basketball. And sometimes it's an exaggeration. And which at Van Gundy, it's not. And I'm sure you've read Chris Herring's book about the 1990s next. A year, he quoted it many times. There's a, off the top of my head, I may be mistelling this a little bit, but I don't think I am. There's a story of Van Gundy driving home from a game and being so immersed in whatever happened in the game,

whatever adjustments he had to make going forward, that he literally just drove into his own garage door because he wasn't paying attention to what he was doing. Is there a modern-day, like current New York Celebrity Row guy or woman that you have gotten to know on a more than token basis? Are you like, are you secretly friends with Timothy Shalomey now? Are you a stiller guy, Tracy Morgan, Susie Esman?

And who is your best celebrity fan friend? Well, Tracy sits right next to our table. So he's been, he's been such a joy. Timothy Shalame has been going for years. I had to get him to stop calling me, Mr. Green, because he's, he's such a polite young man. Ben Stiller is, he is as crazed a Nick fan as anybody who sits up in the 400 section. And those are the fans I love. Steve Shrepa is another one.

Steve Shripa is just, he's just so into it. Michael J. Fox, who is one of my heroes because of what he's done for Parkinson's. Also, just like such a real caring fan. Like, they really care. They live and die with the Knicks. So there's a lot of them as well. There's another one. Richard Schiff is a big Nick fan and become friendly with Richard as well.

He's a terrific actor. He's West Wing, the bearded guy, right? He played Toby in the West Wing. But there's, I mean, there's so many of them there. that they're not just showing up to be seen. They're showing up, and from start to finish, don't stop yelling. It's really cool to see. Was there any part of you, as the Knicks went on to a sweep of blowouts,

that was a little jealous that you weren't calling the Western Conference Finals? And do you do things like imagine the volume and whether it would be a single or double bang when you see a shot like Victor Wenbighama shot in game one of that season? series? Well, to answer the first question, no, because I, I, this Nick team is so enjoyable to watch that I was, I was glad it worked out that this year we got the Eastern Conference finals because last year we didn't, and I'm going to tell you a story from last year. So the Knicks make the Eastern Conference Finals first time in 25 years, and we don't have the East, which was disappointing. We had the West last year. It would have been nice. So Kevin Harlan calls me up

after the Knicks clinch to go in the conference finals. And he says, listen, you deserve to call the conference finals. It's the first time in 25 years. You deserve it. This is what I want to do. You call ESPN. I've already TNT people. They would love to have you call.

Let's switch. We'll do. I'll do the ESPN Western Conference Finals. You do the East so you can do the next. You deserve to do the Knicks. And he says, I know TNT would want to have you. And if ESPN doesn't want to have me and they want to put in Dave Pash or Mark Jones, I'm fine with that.

Now, you tell me anybody else who would make that offer. So I said to him, oh, I don't know if we can do that, Kevin. No, we can. We can. He says, think about it, sleep on it. Next day, he calls back again. Let's do this. You deserve to do this.

You should be doing the Knicks in the conference final. And ultimately determined it wasn't really fair to each of our employees not to do it. but to this day I'm so overwhelmed by Kevin making that offer. And it wasn't just some gratuitous offer. He really wanted to do it. He was pushing me to do it. And that's something I'll never forget. And fortunately, this year it worked out where they're back in the conference finals.

So I get to call games for them in the conference finals and now obviously the finals. So you're in Oklahoma City, I guess, when Halliburton hits the shot that goes to the ceiling and drops through the net. and his first thought of, oh, my God, it's a three of the game's over, then it's a two. Who are you watching that game with? What are your memories of that game? Watching it in my hotel room in trying to think of which city I was in. I think it was Minnesota. Okay, maybe it was Minnesota.

I had a Western Conference Finals somewhere. Right. But I was by myself in the hotel. Usually I like, I take notes while I'm watching the game. And, you know, it's the roller coaster ride. I'm thinking, here's one of things I thought that, And I would have done this, the shot. I would have on the air, been going a while, what a shot.

And how many Nick fans would have been so mad at me for screaming, Halliburton does it, he done the clutch? Because he was on that incredible clutch role throughout that entire postseason. So that's one thing I thought about that Nick fans may have never forgiven me if I would have been screaming for Hallibur on that one. So you didn't throw the remote control at the wall or anything like I did when I was a kid when John Franco would blow saves. and my parents would be like,

you can't keep chipping the wall at our house with their own control just because John Franco drives you crazy. So speaking of that topic, now that the Knicks are in the finals, you're going to call the finals. There's this all, you've already answered questions about this

in interviews in the last 48 hours, but oh, Mike Green, he's rooting for the Knicks. How is he going to remain on bias? And I'm like, he's called deep Knicks playoff games before and actually went back and watched your call. I watched a whole 10-minute YouTube

of some of it. of your most famous calls. And one of the calls on there is Andrew Nemhard's go ahead three in game three of the second round two years ago. And you're going insane for that call with a legitimate, like, joy in your voice that would people, people who didn't know would be like, is he just rooting for the Pacers? Or is he just an unbiased fan who loves basketball? Marve Albert called the finals the last time the Knicks were in the finals and he had been

the voice of the Knicks for a long time. So it's not like this is new. Do you even think about this when you're calling the game? Is it even in your head? Or is it just a totally separate like Mike Breen is over here somewhere else? No, you make sure you want to focus on being straight down the middle on it. And because I watched Marr growing up and worked for NBC during those 90s, and he called so many big Nick games on the playoffs against Chicago against Indiana,

you know, he showed me and he showed a lot of people how to do it. And, you know, I learned from Marv in terms of that. And I did some of those, I remember calling a Reggie three-pointer to win a playoff game at the garden and screaming my full head off. That's the job. And you have to do it that way. And the other thing, too, is I love basketball so much. I've been in love with basketball since I was seven or eight years old. So when I see a great play, I get excited, whether it's a Nick, whether it's a Celtic, whether it's a warrior, it doesn't matter.

And I know that, you can't win on that. People are always going to think that. But they think that's like every year when the Knicks aren't in the finals. You know, when it's the Warriors and the Celtics, the Celtic fans think I'm rooting for the Warriors. The Warriors fans think I'm root for the Celtics. I mean, I go crazy for Steph Curry because I'm watching greatness. And when he does something spectacular, that's the way you have to respond. So I hope people don't think so, but they will.

And that's okay because one of the great things about the playoffs is how. much the fans care. We talked about the Nick fans. That's fans all across the country. They care so much about the team that they lose objectivity. If you say anything negative about their player or say anything positive about the opponent, they think you're rooting for the other team. So it's part of the business. I love that that the fans are that passionate. And I'll keep doing the way I've been doing in the past. And hopefully people will will be able to say, yep, he's been fair and unbiased. So you were doing radio for a lot of the 90s when the Knicks are really good, including in the finals.

You've talked about calling the OJ game during the finals. So does that mean there are like radio Mike Breen calls of John Stark's dunk in 1993, of John Stark's like maybe somewhat blocked three at the end of game six that could have won the championship for the Knicks? You're at those games calling them on radio, right? Yeah. Did the Stark's dunk? Did the Charles Smith missed it, missed it, missed it? I wasn't going to bring that one up. But the best thing that I, the most proud of in radio in terms of what I did,

there's, I don't know how much time it was left. It wasn't the 8.9 seconds, but it was under a minute to go. And the Nick fans are starting to leave the garden. And I remember saying on the air, where are they going? Don't they know Reggie Miller's in the building? And then he has that, you know, the unbelievable finish, the crushing loss to the Pacers that day. And I was always so proud of that that I forecasted that. Unfortunately, I lost, I saved a lot of those playoff tapes, but I lost them all in the fire.

So they are, oh, my God. So I wish I had some of them to go back to. But those were great days. I work with Klein. And I worked with John Andres, too, the late John Andres, who was a magnificent analyst and a wonderful man. So I have great, great, Merman. Can you kind of, can you conjure the Stark's dunk, which is game two of the 1993, certain conference finals. The Knicks go up 2-0. His dunk, I think, puts the Knicks up by five maybe late in that game and kind of clinches it. It's the lefty, basically, iconic Knicks.

Can you conjure the image? Can you remember what you said? I don't remember specifically what I said, but I remember losing it and almost thinking, okay, did I go over the top on the call? Like, just screaming because it was so explosive. It just came out of nowhere. You knew he was driving to the basket. You knew he was athletic. But to do that in that game, and you know everybody in the building, and myself

included, felt this is the year. This is the year that they're going to win it all again. And then obviously it turned. In 99, you were doing some TV, some WNBA TV. Like, where are you for the Larry Johnson four-point play against Indiana in the conference finals? Are you, are you calling that for radio TV? Where are you for that shot? No, that was the year that Marve came back. And his first year back, he did the radio, and I was still the TV voice. And because it was now in the conference finals, regionals didn't do it then. We did the first two rounds, I think, then, but not the conference final. So I had a baseline seat along press row, and I was right under the basket when he hit that shot.

Under the basket that it went in or the other end of the – Wow. I got to go back and see if I can find you. I rewatch it a few times and I couldn't find you, but I wasn't looking there. Yeah, no, that's where it was. and everybody says, and they might be correct that as loud

as the building can ever be. That amazing shot that NBC had in that, that shows the crowd around. I think that builds into that because there's been a lot of moments where you just, you can't hear yourself.

But that was special. The thing I always remember about that was Chris Childs running over to Johnson right away to remind him you still got a free throw to shoot here, pal. That was a cool moment. 94 finals

Rockets, Nix, you're calling those games. I don't want you to tell the OJ story again because you've told it a million times of the fans behind you yelling at you not to switch off the monitor that was showing the Bronco. Can you

picture your angle when Starks gets that shot off at the end of game six that Olajuwon gets a fingertip on and Ewing has always said, I was rolling, I was rolling right right near the foul line, I was open. John could have passed me to the ball.

I had a gimmie to tie the game. Starks has always said there was so few, there was like two seconds left. I didn't know if it was going to be enough time to pass it to him. Can you, in your mind's eye, can you see that? Do you remember your call of that moment? Because when that shock, I remember I was 16 years old. No, yeah, 16 years old.

And I remember when he rose up for that shot, there was a moment where, like, people didn't shoot obviously nearly as many threes then as they do now. And so there was a moment where my brain had to register. Oh, they're going for the win. This could win the actual NBA championship. You just didn't expect them to shoot a three.

Well, that could have been a career-ending call for me. So we're on the radio and we're on courtside right next to the Nick Bench. The shot was down the other end on the near side. So when I can't see down the left corner because people are, you know, people are standing and it's all the way down. So when he takes the shot, I don't know if he's behind the three-point line or not. So when the shot goes up, I don't know if it's a two-pointer or a three-pointer. Now, usually on stuff like that, play-by-play voices will tell you, if you can't see if he's behind the line, you look at the reps. You check out the reps,

and they have that hand signal that it's a three-point attempt. But all three of the reps were blocked. I couldn't see them if they had the hand up. So the shot is up. And if it goes in, it's either a tie game overtime or the Knicks win the championship. So if it's a three-point when it goes in, I'm not going to, I don't know if it's to win the championship. And who knows how my call would have been if it went in. And Elijah, because he got a piece of it, which you couldn't tell again from our location. So I could have blown the biggest radio call in Nick's history that if that shot goes into championship, I probably would have looked up with the scoreboard and like yelled it's good six or seven times until they put up the score whether they

won or not. But I've always told that that I could have blown the biggest call of my career because I couldn't tell if he was behind the three point. These are human moments, right? Like I had Harlan on last week and he was talking about the Halliburton shot and almost everyone thought it Almost everyone thought it was the three right away. And he didn't say there was just noise. And he kind of waited until they knew it might not be a three. You in this same, basically the same game a year later, have the Sam Merrill shot, which I have called the unbang.

And you and I were texting about this the next day. And I told you just unprompted. And I didn't even realize you were going on Levitart later in the day to talk about it. I said, I don't think that's a mistake. and I know a lot of people in your position are perfectionists. They want to get everything right. That sounded so organic. And the bang, no!

That it was, I thought it was like the perfect human organic call of the game. It was a very smooth transition from a proto bang to a no. And you seem to like appreciate me reaching out. I'm like, I hope he's not beating himself up over that. Because I thought it was like the absolute, it was exactly what I wanted the announcer in the moment to be saying. and reacting to a shot that was literally halfway down and out. But so I hope you have no regrets over the unbang. No, I mean, clearly you want to have it a clean call,

but the game is not played perfect, and I certainly never broadcast it perfectly, and that's the way it was. I mean, we had a great angle on it, and it looked like, and when they did the zoom in, that half the ball was under the top of the cylinder. It just, it was crazy.

And I mean, that stuff happens. and you have to react quickly to it. And it's like the shamit three-pointer that was in the game one situation, the other one, the one, the hits, bounces up. The thing I remember for that, I can hear the crowd go, oh, and then it goes through and it explodes. So those things happen. And, you know, after doing all these years, there's plenty of calls that, you know, you want to nail cleanly and that don't happen. But you have to admit the mistake and say what happens next.

it's all part of the business. But I really, I really appreciated that, that text. Little did we know that Landry Shambit was just not going to miss any more shots for the rest of the series. Let's talk quickly about some of your other fun calls because I haven't had you on in quite a while. We've talked about the double bang, the first double bang, the Curry shot from a million feet away in Oklahoma City. So I rewatch that today. And you said you wanted, you want every call to be as as clean as possible, and that's become one of your most famous calls. But watching it again today, you start talking, you say, they have a time out, they're not going to use it.

And then you start speeding up because you realize he's actually going to shoot. So you're like, they have a time out, they're not going to use it. Curry from way not out of town. Like you had to catch up to get to the bang on time. Do you remember in your head thinking, I'm talking about a timeout and he's actually in the shooting motion? and it comes off perfectly, but you had to actually accelerate and catch up to Steph Curry's range. Yeah, it was a rushed call. There's no question because when he crossed, he had enough,

I thought he had enough time to take a couple more dribbles. So I did not expect it. But then, you know, you watch him enough, you can see where, okay, he's got the gatherings ready to go. So I had to go on it. And that was one of those where I call it, it's a cumulative call because it was all that led up to that moment. The season that the Warriors were having, the season that he was having, he was playing on a level that very few have ever played. And then that particular game,

where it looks, all right, this great run is going to at least be temporarily stopped. He gets hurt, has to leave the game. They're down 14. It all led up to, wow, this magic is still happening

with this player with this team. And that's when I lost my mind. I never, like, I never said, oh, I'm going to do bang. I say bang twice, the double bang. And it just came out. I remember the first time I heard it back, I really thought, oh, my goodness, I'm such a, I sound like such a screaming fool there. But that was, that was the basketball fan coming out of me. And that's what I've always tried to do in calls. Like I said earlier, I love the game so much when I see something special. That's me reacting as a fan, I'm trying to do it in a professional way, but sometimes the fan part seeps in, and I think that's a good thing. I do, too. And one of the, this is going to be a deep cut for Nick's fans, but I have to ask you about this.

You're so professional and you're so nice all the time that I actually love when something about a game or a player annoys you enough that you begin to editorialize a little bit in a negative way. Not negative, but you just, you know, you're the critical basketball fan in you comes out because something is happening that is just not the way you think basketball should be played or mistakes are being made or whatever. And so this is my long-winded way of asking you, have you spoken to Jordan Clarkson about the Jordan Clarkson game since he was acquired by the Knicks? And for people who don't know, he was, I think it was last season. He was on Utah. And he had a game at MSG where he just came into that game. It was like, I'm just chucking it up. Like, I'm not going to pass.

I'm just going to take one horrible shot. I'm going to have a Jordan Clarkson game. And it was one of the only times I could remember you. Your version of disgust was like, by the fifth one, you're like, well, Jordan Clarkson, he's not passing. Well, Jordan Clarkson, he's taking some toughies tonight. Have you talked to him about this? Because knowing him a little bit, he's come on my podcast before, I think you would actually think it's funny. He was, he brought it up.

During the season when the Knicks were out on the West Coast, a bunch of us all went to Napa Valley. And on the ride, he brought it up like, man, he goes, what were you, what were you doing that night? So I told him the whole thing. And he, he did, he laughed the whole thing about it. I didn't know him very well prior to. Obviously, respected his, his scoring prowess and stuff. But that was one game that, as you said, they were out of it. He just, he just, he just wanted to throw up every time. And we shared a, we shared a good laugh about it. And he, but he was the one that brought it up. I was going to bring it up to him, but he brought up first and he could have been nicer about it. It's interesting you bring that up. One of one of the great lessons I heard

was from Snapper Jones. Snapper Jones was one of the best people I've ever met. And he used to give me help when I first started NBC. I do some games with Snapper. I did a lot of games with Snapper and Bill, Bill Walton. And there was one game where J.R. Smith was playing for the Knicks. And he was really struggling. And it looked like he didn't care, was taking bad shots. And I was critical like that, like that night with Jordan Clarkson. And the next day, Snapper called me. And he says, hey, listen, I listened to you last night. He said, everything you said about J.R. Smith last night, you were right on the money. And I'm thinking, okay, great. He goes, but it sounded personal. He says, don't ever let it sound personal. It was a

great, great piece of advice that he gave me. He used to do stuff like that. You know, always give you things to think about. And it was, you know, it's amazing what you can learn from somebody who's watching at home. And Snapper was great like that. Another story, if you have time, I don't know. Of course. So one time, this is during the dark years. And I'm walking out after the garden. They got hammered again. And there's a gentleman, I'm going to say he's about 35, dressed in a suit, probably came from Wall Street by the looks of it. And he comes up, he says, hey, Mike, can I ask you a question? So sure, he goes, why do you hate the Knicks?

And I said to him, hate the Knicks. I said, what are you talking about? He says, listen, I listen. I come to some games, but I listen all the time. And you're just killing them. I said, well, they're like 17 and 50. Do you want me to say they're playing well? And he goes, no, no, no, I don't mean that.

He said, but you don't have to hit me over the head with it every possession. because I'm still watching. I know they're bad, but I want to watch the rookie in here. All right, does this rookie have any chance to be any good? Or is this guy, could he be a piece when we eventually get to be good? And it was a great lesson from just some guy who's a huge fan who was a listener that, okay, I'm broadcasting games of a bad team to an audience who's still watching. And they're watching for a reason again because they care so much about the team.

And it showed me, okay, yeah, you have to be. critical and you have to say when they're playing bad, but you also have to think about who the audience that's watching the game. So it's, again, it's amazing how people are watching can give you a good thought that tell you that, all right, maybe you're doing something right, maybe you're doing something not so right. Well, Mike, that's very relevant for me today, watching the New York Mets with my daughter because I am of two minds. I want the S&Y broadcasters, Gary Keith and Ron, who are fantastic, to not sugarcoat what a disaster this season is. and how bad the offense that never scores any runs are is,

and they don't sugar-coded. They've been, like, pretty open about this is a crushing disappointment, yet another, like, you can't win when you score no runs. That's a scientific fact about baseball. If you score zero runs, you're going to lose the baseball game. But also, I do want, as a fan, like, tell me a little bit about AJ Ewing and, oh, look, he's taking a really high percentage of pitches out of the strike zone. And that's great.

And I want to be excited about Carson Benj and Jonaton comes out of the bullpen. And so there is a balance that you can do both. You can acknowledge it doesn't have to be propaganda. You can acknowledge that the team is having a horrible, disappointing season. And also just, you know, feed me some tidbits of like, here's a nice story that might be important next year when the team hopefully isn't terrible. Yeah, no, it's, it's again, for when you're calling a game on television, you always have to think about who's watching, who's my audience, what's their goal, why are they watching? And those two pieces of advice served me well. Last question, and I'll let you go.

You have some time now to think about this finals. And the first two games will be either in Oklahoma City or St. Antonio. Are you approaching it any differently than any other NBA finals? And have you let yourself imagine what the garden is going to be like and what it would be like if they actually win? no approach it the same way and trying to find some stuff and we're both teams and

you know depending on who the opponent is is there any historical significance in terms of personnel teams all that kind of stuff that might have a cool narrative in this particular series in terms of the imagine what the garden will be like

I think I have a pretty good feel of what it would be like but I think this one's going to hit differently because you know so much now is is different. Because of social media, fans are a lot more aware of so many different things that go on.

So the passion might even be at a higher level. And in terms of if they ever won a championship, the city would just explode. It's such a wonderful fan base for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is a basketball town. They've always loved basketball as much as any sport.

And number two, because of what the Nick fans have gone through would be to live through all the dark years and still stay loyal and still care when they're, you know, been out of playoff contention for three months and they're still with two minutes to go in an April game and a two-point game. You make it feel like it's game seven in the finals. So that's what I think about how deserving, and through this whole run, Zach, how deserving the fan base is to have a moment like this. So it would be incredible, but it's going to be very difficult because,

both these teams present so many problems. It's going to be an awesome series. And Mike Green will be there to Chronicle at all with Richard Jefferson and Tim Legler, my old friends and colleagues. Mike, it's wonderful to see you. Thanks for your time. I will see you at the finals somewhere, either in New York or Oklahoma City or San Antonio. I look forward to saying hi. Maybe the Mets will win a game between now.

And then Mike Green, the Hall of Fame or the Legend. Thank you, sir. Zach, I'm a big fan. Always fun to talk with you. You go to Hawaii in your head all the time. But when you're actually ready to go, there's Expedia. Flights, hotels, vacation homes, cars. Save more when you bundle so you can stop dreaming and start saving.

Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Members only savings vary. All right, enough Nick's hype. We have a game tonight slash tomorrow, depending on when you listen to this. The game of the year and every game in this series will be the game of the year until it's over either tonight or in game seven. Thunder Spurs coming. off a game five thunder win when their offense got off a little bit for the whole game. Shea got off in the second after a shaky first half.

And yet Moa Kiel, despite Victor Wenbayama having a really highly scrutinized for a 15 game that I didn't think it was quite, didn't feel quite as bad as it's being scrutinized that, but was not great, was not as aggressive as he needed to be in the first half, was right there for the Spurs at the beginning of the fourth quarter in the minutes that they have to win when Victor's on the floor and Shea's off the floor, and boy, did they have chances. Julian Champany missed a wide open three. There was the fast break where Victor wasn't ready for the hit ahead pass. Victor missed a wide open three.

They had Vassell missile layup that would have cut it to eight, and then McCain came down at the other end and made a three that made it 13 and something shivered down Darry's spine somewhere. It was right there, and then it wasn't right there. And I'm just going to, I'm speaking this into the world now, Mo. we haven't had a classic since game one. Like the games have been kind of competitive and close-ish, but usually one team's been holding the other at arm's length.

That was the Thunder in Game 5. I want a classic in Game 6, young, precocious, who needs experience, spurs fighting for their playoff lives at home against a banged up Thunder team. Can we speak a classic into existence in game six? I think it's our responsibility to do that. But I think we're due for one as well, right?

Like I think it's coming in the ether a little bit of everything that we're getting that we're heading towards a classic moment because the spurs back are up against the wall now. Like they have nothing, they have to throw everything on the court and go all out to make sure they force a game seven. So hopefully we get lucky, Zach. And hopefully we on this podcast speak it into existence and then we could, you know, state claim that we did this. You know why? Another reason I'd like to have a classic close game down to the wire. is so Mason Plumley and Bismack Biobo can't come in the game and start decking people just left and right

after Wemby whispers in there. I don't know what Wemby said. I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying anything, but like they came in, they had a mission. They executed their mission. Their mission was Jared McCain,

and he was on the ground a lot. I don't want to see any more of that. Let's have a close game. Victor, four of 15, did get 12 free throws, 0 of 5 on threes. And then ducked the media after the game was issued a warning

because I guess he's not allowed to be fined for anything even elbowing Nasreid in the face and almost decapitating him, fine, whatever, just call it what it is. What did you think of his performance in game five and what needs to change

for the Spurs to keep their season alive? I think just overall I found his performance to be kind of weird in the way of worse. The biggest thing that stood out to me, especially early in the game, is he wasn't contesting shots as eagerly as he had been through the course of the series.

Like, you know, look, he finished the game with three blocks. He was contesting stuff. But there were opportunities where I thought like, oh, this guy's driving. Wemby's going to give a contest right there and make it a tough shot.

And he just showed up and maybe he got there a little bit late or whatnot, but no contest at all. And then it was an opportunity there. I think Hartenstein had a layup. And then there was just stuff where there was like disorganization defensively. And I don't know how much of that. I'm going to put on Wemby or put on the whole team or put on the coaching staff in terms of their message of what they want to do defensively. But early in the game, Shea comes off a pick and roll.

Hartinstein rolls to the rim. Fox is on Shea. He's actually in pretty good position. But Wemby Shade's over, but never makes it all the way to Shea, like kind of stops at the block in case Shea's coming into the paint. But he leaves Hartnstein and nobody pulls in. And that gives up a wide open dunk or layup for Hartinstein. And it was just small things like that where I wasn't sure. Almost felt like Wembe was unsure what to do defensively.

Where I'm so used to seeing like anybody drive by the rim, you're going to have to get it off over an eight foot dude. Right. Like I think it's along those lines. And that just didn't seem to be there in that aggression. And then, you know, on top of that, him only having just six rebounds was kind of a flashpoint for me where it's like, okay, like, I know you're contesting shots as well, but we're used to you getting. 10, 11, 12 rebounds a game on top of that. Let's go big picture because I do like that you started on defense because all the focus has been on why didn't he get into the pay more on offense?

Why is he drifting? Why is he shooting jumpers? And the answers to that question have at least something to do with how the Thunder had been guarding him since game one when they basically scrapped the idea of having smaller guys guard him because the bottom line is like for all the scrutiny on the offense, they gave up 127 points. Yeah, some of that is that the Thunder role players. hit their threes. Caruso had another, like, where is this all season long? I guess you don't need it.

But here it comes in the playoffs. And McCain had a pretty loud. So there was a little bit of time in the game where I was like there's a little too much Jared McCain going on right now. I could use a little. I could use like a hairless Jared McCain. You just got here, man. Like I know you're starting like unbelievable that he's starting. But I do think just zooming way out, he definitely Victor was came out of the locker room after halftime with much more intent to get to the basket. You could see that in How Hardy rolled to the rim. And when he rolls to the rim, good things happen. You could see that in just when he would get the ball at the Dirk spot. He was just trying his best to burrow as far as he could and then a spin move and he pivoted. He

pivoted. He had a smitty at one point and pivoted to the rim. And he missed all those like sort of leaning bankers that are somewhere between floaters and layups for him. He tried the T-Mack again, throw it off the backboard to himself again. And he just missed them all. But he clearly came the locker room knowing, just like he had after, I can't remember, which game did he say, you know, I just, I think it was one of the Minnesota game, game one of the Minnesota series, where he said I didn't play the game correctly, basically. Right. Clearly knowing, like, I didn't go with enough force north-south to the basket.

And then he did. And I think people are just, like, we're all very picky with these players and we want them to play these perfect, perfectly calibrated games all the time. I think it's just exhausting to play. I think there's like a big fatigue factor that that comes into play here where it's just hard to play with North-South ferocity on offense. Every single possession all the time, every game, start to finish and do what he does defensively.

And that's what I, that's what the halftime change said to me was, all right, look, man, I'm not, it's, I don't feel like, maybe I don't feel like, you know, completely, you know, fresh and whatever, but I got to give it every. everything I had. Like, this is playing the way everybody wants him to play every minute and the way that he's most effective playing every minute is really, really exhausting. Well, I mean, being a big man's exhausting in general, right? Like, we also know that they're, they're refereed differently than guards in terms of

what's a foul and what's not. And I'm not trying to say anything about the, uh, when we should have gotten more calls or anything like that or I thought he was officiated pretty well in this game. I think ultimately, though, it's just you got to. bang bodies. All your catches are tough. In the playoffs, all your catches. Everything at the dirk spot when he's trying to catch it. He has Hartenstein leaning on him. He has Jay Lynn Williams leaning on him. He's got all sorts of guys on top of him. And that's just sort of wears you down and tires you out and is a bit exhausting in all of that. But that's also the playoffs. Like that's kind of like that's what it's supposed to be. Right. Like if it was easy, the Kings would, well, no, not the Kings. But like, you know, another, you know, a Charlotte. You could give the Kings a sixth player and they're not in the Western Conference finals.

They might not be in the playoffs. But like I think the challenge though is like this is where he's got to figure out he's experiencing this. And I think we've seen flashes through the course of the season or the course of the playoffs where it's the youth of the spurs have shown up at times. And I felt like that was this in this game to some degree. And some of it was also I just think the Thunder had a great game plan like we're. going to be physical on him. We're going to make sure he feels us and be on top of him in that regard. We don't care that he's going to go to the free throw line 12 times. We're going to wear him down. And they kind of did in this game. And I think you started to see that. And as he wears down,

he drifts further and further away from the paint, which I don't blame him. Like, it's hard and it's physical and it's tough in that regard. But like, he's got to find a way to get back into the paint. And I think that's got to be stuff that, you know, I think Mitch Johnson has got to do a better job putting him in spots. I think they got to find different ways to get. him looks and closer into that area so that he's not drifting around the three point line. Yeah, and there are ways to do that. I mean, I'm always astonished that they don't even just set like cross screens for him to cut across the paint into a deep post-up.

I thought they kind of went away from the corner pin down plays that he and Vassell are so good at that he's been increasingly like trying to just cut right right across into the paint. And the thunder had been bumping him like hell on those plays. And the spurs know that. And on the back end of those bumps, sometimes they're the three-point shooter, the guy who screens for him pops open. So that's another reason I'd go back to that.

But also, like, rolling to the rim is super hard work. Obviously, he's amazing at it. He's giant, and they throw it up to him, and he lads it dunks it in or taps it in or gets his own rebound, and we saw more of that in the second half. But you also need to have, to do that in tandem with your guards.

And Fox has not been quite the same. He was 4 or 15 also, since the ankle injury. Harper has been like a single digit sort of floating around a little bit like kind of non-entity for a lot of the last two games since he had his injury.

And so the timing on those plays hasn't been as easy. And the Thunder clearly made a decision in game four and even more so in game five. We're going to get under every Steph Castle screen as best we can. We're going to lose some of those battles because the spurs are really good

at making it hard to get under or setting screens lower and lower and lower. But it's a partnership and the synergy between the guards and Wembe wasn't always there. That said, their offense is at its best when he is rolling to the rim, like a dynamic threat that just sucks everybody else into his orbit and opens up opportunities for everybody. And he's so tall that he's just going to roll into 20 points by doing that. And I think they just got to do more. Yeah.

And I think, you know, they're leaving something on the table. every time the thunder go under a screen successfully, it needs to be an automatic re-screen and get that lower opportunity there because once they go under, they're giving you real estate in that area, and that's the opportunity, just immediately flip, set the re-screen, come right back off,

and then you're closer, and now it's harder. The other thing that I found was really problematic, you know, when I rewatched the game this morning, was just the spacing seemed so, off for the spurs in the sense of a lot of cutting with that. There was a play, like, you know, we talked about the start of the fourth quarter. There was a stretch in that second quarter where they cut the lead, you know, it's 44, 45. It looks like they're about to make this more of a game.

The thunder go on a run, but somewhere in that run, Castle tries to thread the needle to Harper along the baseline. And it's at the same time Kelton Johnson is cutting from the above the break three area. and that allowed Dork to get in there and get a deflection. I remember that. Harper gets it, rushes a shot, misses it, but boom, it's a, it's a scramble play. The thunder are running in early offense and get door to clean three and he knocks it down. It's like there's just no avenue in terms of that spacing, whereas, you know, like I love when teams cut and things like that, but I felt like with Harper already in the Dunker spot, like Johnson cutting wasn't smart in that area.

like they were all just moving to move without there being real purpose behind their cuts and thinking the logic of like, oh, I need a space here because that's going to put Dort in a bad position. Because if he doesn't, Dork can't get in there and get that deflection. Maybe that play turns out differently. And then we have the butterfly effect. But I feel like there was a lot of stuff with their spacing also that was incredibly off. My favorite Victor roll to the rim was right at the end of the first half. It was a pick and roll with Fox, who I thought, his passing was pretty good in the game. I mean, Harper got picked a bunch of times for turnover.

He was pretty shaky, but I thought Fox's passing was at least good. It was right at the end of the first half. And Victor is so cagey. He does this on defense, too, where he tries to trick people into a false sense of security, like, oh, he's not there, and then he's there. He did it on offense where he set a screen for Fox, and he just kind of popped a little bit, like he was going to, he paused, like he was going to just stay 19 feet from the rim and shoot a jumper.

And when he paused and he didn't roll, Hart and, committed to Fox completely, and then Wemba Njama rolled to the room. It was like a delayed roll, and he got a lob dunk out of it. But let's go to the other end, because you were right, I think, to go to Spurs defense versus Thunder offense. 127 points is a lot of points against a Wemby team. Obviously, it's against any team. But particularly considering the Thunder had their single worst offensive game of the season

in game four. And this is really interesting because there are two very distinct games. within each of these games. There's the Hartenstein minutes where the Spurs are largely playing in man-to-man with Victor on Hartenstein. And then there's the non-Hartenstein minutes when Victor

is playing his zone along the baseline. And I thought those minutes, the Spurs found, I'm sorry, the Thunders found some interesting encounters to the 1B1 Man Zone. We'll talk about that later. The Hardenstein minutes are really interesting because

it almost seems like the Thunder are leaning a little bit more into them and definitely did in game five. And Shea and Hartenstein, Hartnstein said 18 ball screens in game five. That's by far his most of the series. That two-man game kind of got the thunder down the stretch of the game. And I wonder if there's a comfort almost. I mean, we talked about this, you know, in December when they had all those games together. The push and pull of do you want Victor in the action or behind the action?

and it's sort of like there are two different poisons. None of them are going to taste good. But they seem to be growing comfortable with when he's in the action. At least we kind of know where he is and what he's going to be doing. And I thought that they found some chemistry on that play. It's just so interesting. There are two very different kinds of games within these games. Yeah, you know, I was talking with Jared Dubin, my podcast partner on the Double Drubble,

and he actually had the stat. It was they went at Wembe and the picture. can roll about 26 times. And they had like a 1.5 points per possession or something like that or 1.35. Excuse me. The Hardinstein ones on his ball screens according to second spectrum, 1.3 points directly, 1.5 points per possession overall. So like huge numbers.

Like that's a number you don't expect when you're going at Wembe, right? Like that's an insane number in that sense. So I think, you know, they found how they want to attack Wembe in this regard and how they're going to go at him. And I think part of it also has to do with the guards. It's got to be better with how they hold up against SGA. I think they need to be a little bit smarter with their attacks. But that's the thunder's focus right now. You can see it clearly in this game. And it's paid off like the way this one out. And then give Hardinstein credit. He does a great job also with the Gortat immediately afterwards and kind of screening off

Wembe and creating that way. Another $5 for Marching Gortat. Every time you mentioned it, Mo, I hope he's copyrighted it by now. I hope he hasn't because I'm going to be broke by the end of all this. But I think, you know, just having mastered that and creating that lane, it just makes it so much harder. And even despite Wembe being as long as he is, it's hard to get there, you know, when you got to try to go over Artenstein in that scenario. Like, I think the thunder, like it's funny. We felt, I don't know, I kind of felt a little bit after game four, like, maybe the Spurs have figured some stuff out with the Thunder. I did too. And now game five, it's like, all right, well, maybe the Thunder have figured some things out with the Spurs. And this is

the fun part about this series is like, cool, now the spurs have to adjust and figure out how do we want to handle this, the pick and rolls when they go at Wembe, what's going to be our rotation behind it? What are we going to do? And I think that's going to be the thing that I find most fascinating going into game six. Like, I'm so excited for this game right now, like, ready to go to lock it down. Like, we're ordering dinner. I'm not cooking dinner or anything.

You know, where, well, I'm now largely responsible. for dinner over the next few months. So this is a deal here. Fair. That's fair. She's responsible for some other stuff. Yeah. But the margins, the margins on that stuff, just because it worked in the fourth quarter

of the second half of this game, doesn't mean it's going to work in the next game, even if everything stays the same because the margins are so small. And just every game is different. Every game evolves differently. And there was that stretch in the fourth quarter where, again, I think they just like knowing where Wembe is. there's comfort in just knowing if we do this, he's going to be here. And Shay would drag him down toward the sideline base to the coffin corner where he loves

to take jumpers. There was that one place, there was one possession where he took a jumper. I think he missed it. He went right into Wemby's stomach and faded away. Now, the next possession, they ran at the same thing. And Wembe came over and kind of stuck around and trapped him. And Shay through that lefty bounce pass right by Wemby's leg, like right past his leg that found Hartenstein under the basket.

It's such a good cat mouse game. But I also think they found something in the other kind of game, which is when Hartenstein's off the floor and it's Chet and Jalen Williams together or just big Jalen Williams. Interestingly, they played no minutes the Thunder in game five with Chet as the only big man on the floor. For whatever reason, they just don't want to do that. But when they play those more spacey lineups and Victor plays zone, I think they found some interesting ways to kind of confuse Wembe's decision. a little bit in that scheme? Did you notice any of that? What did you see?

Well, I think it was more again. It became a situation where it's like, all right, when Jalen Williams sets a ball screen in that area and in that zone, Wembe's sinking into the paint. And it's just they're finding pockets. The rotation leads to Jalen Williams gets the ball. And then it's an immediate swing to somebody else because everybody's rotating. And then Wembe's got to rotate out to the corner, whether it's Wallace, Caruso, whoever.

And some of these guys are making them. Some of them aren't. But it's like that's putting him in those rotations. And because he has to protect the paint, it's a long way to go. Even for him, you know, it's two or three strides. But by that time, that shot's going up. Like he still has a long way to go. It's sort of stretching the floor out.

And what there, I think the difference between Chet in that spot and Jalen Williams, as Delon big, I feel like Jalen is pushing it quicker. Like, not hesitating for a second. I think Chet sits for maybe just half a second longer than he should. And I think that would allow Wembe to rotate over to wherever he needs to go. But I think Williams is pushing it out. Like he had that sick touch pass. Oh, that was a great play.

I mean, that that was during the minutes when Shea was on the bench. But like that, you know, but like he's firing it quickly on the touch. And it's really impressive scene. And I think that his passing, not just his dreaded shooting is a problem. But his passing is what's really kind of causing the allowing this to, work so well for the thunder. And again, this is such a cool thing about the playoffs. And this is obviously partly because of of injuries, right, AJ Mitchell and J. Michelin Williams, the second and third best ball handlers on the team are out. I'm not sure either is going to play in game six.

I would bet no on both of them, but who the hell knows? We'll see we'll see tomorrow. We still didn't really see Isaiah Joe except for one possession. We didn't see Aaron Wiggins at all. Tons of Jailen Williams. And Kenbridge Williams has inserted himself into this series. And this a cool thing about the playoffs. It's like, you need everybody. At some point you're going to need, you know, maybe not, you may not need guys 14 and 15, but you're going to need guys 11 and 12 at some point for some quarter of some game or some three-minute stretch. And they've needed big Jalen Williams quite a bit. But that play you're mentioning, that touch pass, I think, exemplifies one of the wrinkles they've found when Wemby's playing his own. What he's doing is he's,

he's basically guarding the corner, except he's not in the corner. He's like one foot in the paint, but he's on one side of the paint. And the Thunder have decided, we're going to attack that side. We're going to bring the offense to his side of the floor because that's the way we engage him directly. And that Jalen Williams touch pass was effectively a pick and roll

became a two-on-one one between Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso whoever was in the corner and Victor. And he had to make a decision and you force him into guarding two guys at once at a high speed. The very next play on the floor was the same play and McCain drove and it was

a two-on-one, and Victor was indecisive, and McCain kind of went by him inside of him and flicked a layup up. They're engaging his side. And sometimes they'll clear everyone else to the other side of the floor. So it's only two Thunder players on Victor's side. And the guy in the corner will go up instead of ball screen. And at that point, with no one else around, Victor has to become a man-to-man ball screen defender. And they got some good stuff out of that, including a Caruso Drive and a Chet kind of half dunk or attempted dunk that went in at for Victor blocked it. They've just found some interesting wrinkles.

And I can't wait to see how this evolves. To wit, it's sometimes confusing what defense the spurs are in. But I'm pretty sure we got the first couple of possessions of the series, maybe not the very first, but the first in a while, where they played Wembe in a zone and Hartinstein was on the floor. And so they weren't just in man with him on Hardinstein. They were like messing around with the zone, even though the Thunder had their only like non-shooting big on the floor.

And I wonder if they're, I guess, trying that out and see how, see how that looks. Yeah, I think they were searching for answers. And I kind of want to go back to your point, though, about needing your 12th man at the end of the bench scenario. Because that used to be a thing, Zach, when I was with the Spurs. We used to always show the guys at the end of the bench. Forget what game it was, but there was a game during one of their playoff runs where Steve Kerr hadn't played most of the playoffs.

and they pull him off the bench. It was against Dallas. Yeah, and he hits like three threes, right? And it's a pivotal, real important game situation and that stuff. And it was always the message of you got to stay ready and you got to be on top of all that stuff. So it's not a surprise. And you were on top of it. You know, I heard you talking with Bill on Sunday night talking about the Kenrich Williams threes in the corner.

Like that kind of created that sort of confidence so that when he came in the game tonight or yesterday that he was ready to roll. And I think that also allowed Dagonal to go like, yeah, we got something. I can go to him now. I can trust him in this situation. Like, that's a guy stepping up with what you're talking about. I just wanted to touch on that point because it's so fascinating because you never know which guy is going to be that role player in the moment until they do it. Well, and the Thunder need everybody right now with what the guys they have out. Just a couple of fun lineup notes from the series.

I mentioned they didn't play Chet at all as the only big guy on the forward, which is interesting. The Chet, big Jalen Williams combination is plus 20 in 41 minutes in the series. So it's not a ton of minutes, but it's worked so far. That combination of size and range and Jalen Williams passing has been interesting. Chet did finally sort of assert himself in the series for really the first time offensively in game five. And that's a couple of always has very good defensive possessions, although Julian Champany. Julian Champany is like, oh, you're a foot. taller than me and more than that when you raise your arms or whatever it is. I don't care.

I'm going right into your stomach, Bigfella, and laying the ball up over you. That's actually a matchup, I think to Spurs could exploit a little bit more by having Julian Champany run around and run off flare screens. If Chet's going to guard him, make him chase him around. And then the, as the Thunder sort of search for the best shooting lineups that they can put out that don't totally, shooting slash playmaking lineups, the small ball group force them of Shea, Wallace, McCain, Caruso was plus 11 in eight minutes in game five. And I think, like, with all the guys they have available, if they're going to go small, that's the best four non-bigs they can put out.

Dort finally made a shot or two, but he's minus 45 for the series. And this is just a really rough matchup for him. Yeah, I mean, who knows what we're going to see, but these two teams, the chess match is super interesting. I expect the Spurs to play to play like a totally balls to the wall, urgent, hard playing, come out fast, like home crowd's going crazy. I expect Victor

to come out right from the opening the way he came out of the second half, which is I'm going to the rim. I'm airing on the side of recklessly going to the rim. I'm not going to be settling for jumpers early. Yeah, a couple of things too that kind of like stood out to me from this game that was like when I looked at the stat sheet,

I was kind of surprised. One, I wasn't surprised. the thunder getting 26 second chance points, like just absolutely dominating the offensive glass in the sense of successfully converting all their offensive rebounds almost into points right there. I think that was surprising for me with the Spurs not doing a great job defensively there.

I was, it was funny because I looked at the stashy at the end of the night going like, wow, the Spurs had 26 fast breakpoints, but I didn't even feel like they played fast. Like it didn't even feel like they got that. I mean, they were, some of it was sloppiness in the way they, they attacked and so on. But I also felt like they were too slow in the half court, right? Like, and some of this is the Thunder's defense does a great job with it. They look at how they had two or three back court steals.

I mean, Wallace completely picks, I think it was Dylan Harper clean. There's no one else in the league who does the, I'm taking your dribble while it's in the air. And sometimes while it's in your hand, he just takes the ball. It doesn't hit the floor. It's uncanny. It was like he timed the crossover perfectly. That went through a sequence right around Carter Bryant's probably the last few minutes of this series where he had a rough stretch with giving up a three to Shea and then the stupid foul. But I think just in general, like they need to find a way to speed up even in the half court.

But not out of control, but you need to get it up quicker. There was a possession in the second half where they got it up quickly. They got it to Wembe on almost like an isolation sort of pinch post area. And he was able to attack the baseline and get an opportunity. I think it led to kick out three. But I think they need to find ways to get a little bit quicker in that sense. It doesn't necessarily have to be transition. But they need to play a little bit more faster while also under control, which I know is kind of a bit of a...

No, but transition is important for them because they have here and there benefited from a couple of cross-matches that are just, sort of part of this series. Fox's got a layup, I think, in game five, he's not guarding Dort, but Dort is guarding him. And when the thunder fall into the trap of, oh, we got to find our right matchups instead of just picking up the right guy,

the guy's nearest to them, the spurs have been able to squeeze some basketballs out. Like Vassell hit a trail three in game four because he's guarding Chet, but Chet's not guarding him. And just he kind of got lost in the shuffle. Like very unusual and not very many, but still unusual breakdowns for the Thunder in transition defense.

I also thought the Spurs got pretty good stuff going when they hunted McCain. And I would expect them to try to do that even more because there's just not a lot of good places to attack the Thunder. Like Fox bullied them for a couple of drives and just missed it. They're in. They got other good stuff out of it. And part of that comes down to like how much do Fox and Harper have in the tank health-wise to really go full blast in the series? But I expect Wembe to come out like a madman getting to. And I don't like, but a finely calibrated man.

And he's not going to do anything crazy. He's not going to do anything that compromises their transition defense, takes them out of their scheme. But I expect him to just come out laser focused on I'm owning the basket on both ends of the floor and playing myself to exhaustion until they have to rest me for a couple of minutes. And I'll come right back in and do it. I'm expecting just, I don't know how efficient it's going to be. I do.

It doesn't seem like Shea's going to have a crazy Shea efficiency game in him in the year. His second half was really good. He made a lot of tough shots. It's just, this is a tough defense for him to score on when, when they're playing him like they've played the last two games. And he fought his way out of it. We don't need to talk about the officiating. They missed the goal tend and all that. But yeah, I expect a big victor game. And look, this was a 13-point game. I thought the Spurs had chances to make it a nail-biter in that early stretch of the fourth quarter. And they didn't. And the Thunder shot 44% from three the Spurs shot 29%.

And the Thunder just gave, the Spurs just gave the Thunder probably eight points with dumb fouls 80 feet from the basket. And they were fouls. They weren't phony fouls. They were just really dumb fouls with the with the thunder and the bonus.

And you can't do that stuff. They tend, I think, sometimes to get a little bit too aggressive in the moment where they think they can get that steal. That's that Carter Bryant foul at half court. You know, after the steel. It's, you know, Castle phalanx, Shea, like 75 feet from the basket in that area. Like, I think they have a habit of kind of getting a little bit too aggressive.

And I think that's where a little bit more experience might be better in that area. And that's where I feel like their youthfulness kind of shows up. And I think, like, or they feel like they have to do it. The other thing, we haven't really talked about him, but, like, Castle needs to not try to do everything on his own, too. Like, there's an element where I feel like he's putting. putting too much onto him. And I understand why the situations with Fox and Harper and their injuries and stuff. And he feels like he has a bigger load.

But I'd almost rather he let the game come to him versus him trying to force things and make things happen. Because that's where he tends to run into these turnovers, trying to split double teams at half court and things like that. And it coughs the ball up. Like I want to see him a little bit more under control with what he does. Because I think that's going to be a really important piece for them. That's a good, that jogs my memory, too, the phrase under control.

I mean, Castle's young and he's Uber athletic and just plays with a force that is going to lend itself to some moments of out of controlness, although I thought he was completely awesome for the most part in game five. Shea, that first half was, I don't know if he's actually rattled, but he played rattled in that first half. He missed shots that he makes like at a 70% clip probably in the paint. There were two times in the game where he rose up for a shot that he usually takes. And Wembe was in the vicinity, but didn't look like he was going to challenge the shot. And then he second-guessed himself and tried to force a lob pass to somebody. And the lob was not available. And he had a bunch of, like, I don't know, how many turnovers you finish with?

Five in the first half. And just with just forcing the action, trying, like the desperation he feels if I see any slipper. I've got to get through that sliver or else it's the only opportunity I'm going to have. Just like it, but this is the fun of the playoffs. This is a great player who we've spent the better part of the last four years and the particular the last two being like, man, he just makes it look so easy. I mean, just just effortless. And it ain't looking easy anymore.

No. That's the beauty of the playoffs. Like it's not supposed to look easy. It didn't look easy for Michael Jordan and not to compare them. I'm not comparing them. But I remember some of like the grittiest, some of my favorite games of Jordans and Kobe's and whoever were the ones where the easy stuff wasn't there and they had to get to the line. They had to just throw their bodies at the rim. That's that's the fun of it. So look,

predicting individual games is complete folly. I guess what I came away from that game, not feeling as if the thunder had cracked the series. I still feel like the spurs. If they don't have a win, one more win in them, they have one more down to the wired game them. And so I picked Thunder and 7. That was my pick before the series. So I think the Spurs are going to play well. And I think it's going to be a very hard win for the Thunder to get. It wouldn't surprise

me if they get it. But I'll predict a Spurs win just to stick with my original prediction. Because I do think they could have gotten right into that game late, had a couple of things flipped their way. They'll play better at home. So I'll say the Spurs win by four will be my prediction. Oh, okay. I had the

spurs in seven. So I think I am I do think the Spurs win game six. I think we do have a game seven. I'm hoping it's a nail biter. I hope we get another OT game and just have sort of that level of excitement and raise the level. I hope the nuns are ready to go. I hope they're praying and doing all their stuff and nuns.

Ready to keep things going. I do wonder, though, a little bit with just like how much energy they have left. Like, Wembe did look tired. Fair. Like, we talked all about it. Like, Wemby looked exhausted and it's, you know, it's hard now. It's every other night. And it's, you know, this was a, they traveled right after the game.

Luckily, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, not a crazy flight. Right. But like, you're still getting in late, getting the rest and things like that. And it's also mentally draining. Right. And you saw the crack with him not going to the media thing. Like, that said a lot to me. I was just, I think that's a disappointment for me.

I expect Wembe to be on there. I understand he was frustrated with the loss. For me, I think it's something that he's got to do, and that's like a little bit of a like, come on, man. But you can tell that there's a level of exhaustion coming now, you know, even whispering the to be Ambo and Plumley, whether he said anything or not, I don't know, but then immediately them being a rash of fouls. You know, like hard fouls kind of says something. So I think, you know, there's a little bit of a crack there that I think I'm slightly kind of worried about going into game six. Yeah, I mean, look, both this is the nature of the playoffs.

Like, but I don't, I just didn't come away from that game feeling like the Thunder had cracked the code of the Spurs. Now, whether the Spurs can summon enough energy and force with all their health issues and depth issues that are cropping up now. We'll see. I think they have one exhilarating home crowd, home. performance in them, whether it results in a win or not. I don't know. But I'll say that they win. And, you know, look, it's good. I guess, you know who's fresh? I guess it's good Nick Nurse didn't play, Jared McCain's the entire year, because at least there's one guy who doesn't have a lot of tread on the tires. All right, Moe DeKill, double dribble podcast with Jared Dubin. You can

see them on offside. You can see them on everything, Twitch, et cetera, et cetera. Thanks, and we'll check in during the NBA finals, which begin on June 3rd location TBD. Thank you, Mo. Oh, thank you for having me. All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe show. Thanks, as always, to Mike, Billy and Jonathan on production. Thanks to Mike Breen and Moe DeKeele for their analysis

and their time. Thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back later this week for a third episode, a special third episode in the wake of game six. It'll probably post overnight or Friday morning. We'll either talk about game seven or we'll talk about the NBA finals and the Spurs

off season. We'll see. Buckle up. Enjoy game six. Thanks for listening and 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 DC Kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or 1-800-800-mine My Reset. Call 1-888-7-9-77 or visit ccpgaggat-org slash chat in Connecticut or is it MDGamblinghelp.org and Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline M.AW or call 800 327 5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call one 8778 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call one 877 770 7867