The Ringer NBA Show
NBA Finals Variables: The Experience Factor, New York’s New Look, and More
01 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What were the closing thoughts on Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals?
Hello, and welcome to Group Chat. I am Justin Verrier, and joining me, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann.
Finals pod! Let's go, baby! You've been very chanty lately. Is it something in the air? Is it these teams? Like, what has you so jazzed?
I feel the spirit of competition just coursing through me, baby.
I love that for you. I love that for us. And I mean, of all the places the season could have gone, this one is a fucking exhilarating outcome. Like to be here in the finals with the Spurs and the Knicks, two teams I'm super excited to talk about. I just, I know we kind of flirted with this idea coming off of the cup that like, what if this was a finals preview in a way?
The idea that that of all things ended up being prescient is kind of silly, but also kind of rewarding.
Yeah, it'd be fun to go back and listen to, I probably will, go see just what we said about that, maybe before the tip-off on the game, just to get a little feel for this. But it's a fun, we'll get in more of this in the details, I think, of the show, but it is a really fun juxtaposition, match-up, whatever you want to call it, between two teams that are in different situations.
One ascending with a lot of unwritten character, shape, whatever it is, in who they are with the Spurs, and a team that's kind of figured things out over years. and had many highs and lows in the Knicks. So on that level, it's very exciting with a lot of superstars and a lot of different ways that this could go.
I think we need this swelling brass behind us as we talk about this. One team on the trajectory to the next level. Another team hoping to make history at Madison Square Garden or something more dramatic.
Was there a Costas intro? Because I was begging for one and I was setting up my projector and missed it. I was like, I missed the thing I was begging for. Was there an intro?
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Chapter 2: How significant is the experience factor in the NBA Finals?
If you were ever going to do one, I thought game seven in that situation would have been it.
Aren't you just the average modern consumer, Kyle? Complain about the lack of something and then don't even pay attention to it, whether or not you got it.
Yeah.
I screwed the time up. I thought it was 8.30 and it was 8. So I'm like, you know, all over the place. Yeah.
Chapter 3: What’s different about this year’s Knicks run compared to previous seasons?
The amount of complaining I hear about the pregame show or the midgame show, and I just never listen. I literally just mute it just to make sure that I'm on time when the ball actually tips off because it takes an extra 15 minutes after they say it's going to start.
But there's a lot of pomp and circumstance going on about this matchup, not only just because the matchup is incredible, but also Twitter bullying works. So we got the big old trophy back on the court. Which is sick to see. Also saw that there's like the 250, what is it, bicentennial is happening. And so they have a patch all of a sudden on all the jerseys.
I was just thinking, 250 years of the U.S.? That's nothing. Like we are just a speck on this space rock that we're all traveling through time with.
Chapter 4: What key individual or strategic matchups should we watch for in the Finals?
That's wild.
What pivot did we just take?
I know.
250 years, though.
That's not that long ago. This is just occurring to you in the grand scheme of human civilization that we're nothing out here?
Seeing a news brief about a patch on an NBA Finals jersey.
That's right. So does that mean in the grand scheme of existence, are we the Spurs? You know, are we on the ascendance of something?
As a species.
I mean, look, to be honest, we're just getting our legs under us. We've mostly been faltering around for the last couple hundred years at least. So maybe our brightest times are ahead.
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Chapter 5: Which winning storyline is more intriguing for the Finals?
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All right, before we go look at the NBA Finals, we need to talk Game 7, Western Conference Finals.
Chapter 6: What predictions do the hosts make for the NBA Finals?
So I would say kind of the enduring images I have from that matchup, and there are a few of them. One would be the give-and-go early in the game in which Wemby just basically check Homer and Sol just like real quickly. Never recovered from that one, unfortunately. I would say the cornet block. Yeah. Of Hartenstein, certainly.
But I think the one that I'm going to remember for a very long time is down the stretch. The Spurs turn it over. OKC needs a quick bucket. Shea gets to the rim. But oh, no, Wemby's there. He actually has to pull it out and all of a sudden has to reset, even though they needed the bucket as soon as possible. They needed to come back. And so, like, that's kind of, like, what we're up against, Rob.
Like, that seems like the real, like, tidy glimpse of what the future holds, where it's just, like, you could be as good as the Thunder, you could be the two-time MVP, but when Wemby is standing there, everything changes.
They're an amazing team, and we just saw them march to the title last year. And yet, down the stretch of this one, as it got more and more desperate, it was interesting to watch, like, who was game to even take shots.
Chapter 7: How do injuries impact the teams heading into the Finals?
Like, who was even willing to step up for the Thunder? And, like, Cason Wallace was one of those guys who was willing to pull. Alex Caruso was willing to pull. But it's like... It can't all be that, you know? And Wemby and the Spurs have a way of kind of backing you into a sense of desperation, as we've seen over the course of these playoffs.
So making you feel like, right or wrong, all of your best options have been taken away. The things you default on, the things you rely on, are just not as bankable as they used to be. And so Shea had an amazing game. Honestly, I was really happy to see it.
Chapter 8: What are the implications of the Spurs' youth versus the Knicks' experience?
Him put together... a good shooting game from the field, just hitting more of his mid-range stuff, being a little more immutable in the way that we're used to seeing him be immutable, and yet it still wasn't enough. The Thunder just couldn't summon enough of that other stuff around him to make this an actual game that they could pull out down the stretch.
But a tremendous thing to watch, and a tremendous thing to watch just like every spur by contrast seemed to pull those plays out of the mud.
Yeah, I mean, Justin, you mentioned that play, that first play of the game, that was almost like a baptism, like a reverse baptism, because it wasn't the kind you want to be a part of, where Wimby, yeah, just like... Wimby just really caught Chet scrambling out of position. Even if you're in position, Wimby is a tough thing to deal with. But I remember flashing back to...
I guess it was, we were doing the young core rankings where weren't we, when the cup was going on, I think that was like, we were all together in LA. And I remember, I remember us having conversations about, you know, what is it that makes a player go from a nice idea to realizing and crystallizing into a superstar. And I've always kind of believed that like,
you know, who you are in the paint is kind of what dictates your ability to be a superstar. Like what is your functionality there? And it's like, Wimby is just a gigantic asteroid. Speaking of, you know, the history of the earth and how things can change. Wimby is a gigantic asteroid in that lake where, you know, he just causes extinction level events for who you think you are on the floor.
And you watched, you know, Shay got in there. And I think that was a great play to point out was at this critical point in the game, where you would think your superstar would get into the paint and make, make a play. He does this thing too, where it's like, we were talking about gnashing where I was talking about gnashing last week, where you keep your dribble alive intentionally.
Shea got in there and had, you know, normally has the intention to score there. He's like swiveling and turning back towards the perimeter. which is an excellent place to be if you're on defense and you're like reading Shea's eyes, just chewing up clock. Throughout this game, man, it was just – it was really impressive. There's a lot more that we could get into.
I know we want to talk about the finals, but Wimby just – Picked his spots really well. Spurs had role players that came up and hit. Julian Champagny was just nails throughout this game. Unbelievable. This team just kind of answered the bell in some ways that really, really left me reeling for a few days, honestly. I was just so impressed by their youth, the way they stepped up.
Well, the crazy thing about the Shea play as well is that Wemby had five fouls on him, and he was cruising through a lot of that fourth quarter with five fouls, which made the lack of aggression from Chet, I think, stand out in particular, where it's like, at the very least, try to get him out of the game just by drawing contact, and he just wouldn't do that.
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