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Chapter 1: How did the Knicks manage to secure a 2-0 lead in the Finals?
Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin barrier and joining me, Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle, man, Kyle doing kind of like the evolutionary Rob Lowe with the Knicks hat, the Spurs shirt. Love it.
You're in the spirit. I'm just committed to the finals. I just love all my children equally. You know, I love them all.
Well, I love this game more than probably any other game in the playoffs in recent history. Holy shit. Like I'm still kind of coming down from this one, Rob.
Yeah, my first reaction, wow. My second reaction, what? My third reaction, really? Like, this is how it's going to happen, of all things? Victor Wibonyama throwing it off of Stefan Kassel's back in a critical moment.
Chapter 2: What were Jalen Brunson's struggles and their impact on the game?
I mean, I'm just reminded that if you are a young player on this kind of stage, if you're lucky enough to get to the finals, I mean, the lessons are excruciating whenever they come. And this is one that's going to be living with Victor Wibonyama and Stefan Kassel, I would think, for a very long time.
That's going to live on. Yeah, that's one of those ones when it happened. You said you were doing the what, and I did a few oh-noes. When Champagny, that timely foul, I was like, oh, brother, what are you doing? And then, yeah, that hurt. You could just see it on Wimby's face that he wanted to come unraveled. I mean, emotional guy.
That's a play that I feel like we're going to remember about him in some capacity going forward. We'll see what the outcome is.
Well, especially after he like looks distraught, the camera pans to one of the nuns in the crowd. And so I was already like, man, this is kind of like a mess, like a second half of a Scorsese movie. Now we've just got the whole experience here. And so she's got got God factoring in.
Chapter 3: How did De'Aaron Fox's performance affect the Spurs' chances?
It was a real, real cinematic situation, I would say.
Yeah, but it was like mid period, super religious Scorsese. Like this is bringing out the dead. You know, we're somewhere like the driving all night at an ambulance and everybody is ragged. Everyone is haggard.
cut to the nuns just at your lowest possible moment what could be more painful than that let's say 30 days of night what's that movie where the the vampire cruelly says no god that's what i was gonna no that's the one all right why don't we take a quick break just to sort things out here we'll come back talk through all the action
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Chapter 4: What role did the Knicks' bench play in their victory?
All right, I mean... we took a little break. I don't know if I've fully caught my breath here, but just trying to sort through all of this. I kind of like what town said in the walk-off interview, Rob, where like things got super messy and we could really just dig through every like nook and cranny of, of all the, the mess there toward the end there.
But he was like, we built that lead to provide the cushion and it did prove enough. And so I'm kind of caught in between where it's like the Knicks at time book. So sharp, like so dialed in almost dare. I say like big,
past Spurs teams with the ball movement and the execution but like time to stretch they just had enough in that chaotic situation to just pull it out yeah I mean if you want to tug at the string to see who unraveled when it was a great game in which both teams were kind of trading off that sort of responsibility with each other you know they both had incredible runs the Spurs had this great 14-0 closing kick to give themselves a chance to win the game in the first place but you're right by and large if you want to zoom out and look at the game as a whole
I thought this was just an incredible payoff for everything the Knicks have done to get to this point in terms of figuring out all these varied ways to get into their offense. We saw Jalen Brunson doubled. We saw him trapped. We saw him full court press. We saw a decent amount of switching as well. And yet it was just like there was always a way in.
Chapter 5: How has Karl-Anthony Towns outperformed Victor Wembanyama so far?
There was always an avenue, whether that was going to cat in the high post or at the top of the floor to make plays, whether it was Mikhail Bridges bringing the ball up or being a pressure release. Landry Shamit flashing to the middle of the floor and being more than just a shooter, although he certainly shot the shit out of the ball as well. They just had answers for all of that stuff.
And I think, yeah, you're building yourself a cushion so that if you do have a couple of minutes where you go completely scoreless, that's fine too. Because even when they are scoreless, I'm just finding this Knicks team to be totally fearless. Like they still have an OG and an OB drive bump dunk over Wimby in them basically anytime they really need it.
Yeah, the sort of daunted kind of looking for him stuff is not going on as much. You can see that they really were – the Spurs were trying to funnel those drives to the baseline and kind of stay on top, I guess to prevent further ball reversal, whatever the reason was. But the Knicks repeatedly were ready for that.
They looked even on the ones that weren't successful, whether it was Alvarado or whoever. But I think what we're seeing is maturity – These guys have been through the wars together, obviously. They've been through some pretty rough heartbreak together. But I think that is kind of manifesting on the court in the basketball sense where this team, and we were talking about this.
John Schumann wrote a really awesome thing about how competent this team is late clock.
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Chapter 6: What adjustments can the Spurs make heading into Game 3?
And I think you see that just repeatedly. And I was thinking about that a lot during this game where the Knicks just have their wits about them in the second half of the shot clock in a way where other teams like throughout the playoffs that we have seen, you know, Wimby basically, you know, snaps the I've got 28 years later on.
Is he like an alpha snaps the spine out of your out of the first action of your offense is what typically sends your offense into rotation. you know, and things like that. And when he takes that away, he's just like, that's not even going to happen. The Knicks are just acutely set up to be like, we're fine with that because we are so good.
And whether that's Brunson, you know, creating something out of nothing, or we're seeing role players just step up and, and, you know, shame it's on a freaking heater. Like you were saying, I mean, he made huge shots, you know, bridges time and time again, made daggers. But I think that's one of the big thing is just, they are so steady. They don't panic in a way that a lot of other teams do.
I mean, what we're talking about is precision and the Spurs, for as great as they are, are not a super precise offensive team. You know, Castle is still like a little bit wild, even at some unfortunate moments. Fox, you know, really stepped up and had some of those great stretches, but also had lulls in the middle of this game.
And Harper, I thought we saw some of the limitations when you're really asking him to create a lot or to initiate within the offense. That stuff wasn't going well for him.
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Chapter 7: What does the Knicks' performance say about their championship potential?
It was all the other stuff that kind of panned out. And so you have this incredible contrast of this Knicks team that has so many varied avenues and so many guys who feel like they keep their head on their shoulders, as opposed to the Spurs, who are a bit feast or famine right now when faced with this level of competition.
Yeah, it's funny because the Spurs want to play fast, but it almost felt like the Knicks allowed them to tucker themselves out. And they just kind of won the tortoise battle, at least in that first half, where it's like the pressure at first was really making an effect from the Spurs side of things on defense.
And it just felt like slowly and steadily, especially in that second quarter where things just turned around. I think it was like a 12 point swing over there. I think Spurs only had 18 points in that second quarter where it was a lot of just ball movement and like waiting through some of the initial pressure. and just executing off of that.
And then once that happened, if they didn't get the shot to go down and they were shooting the lights out, like the rebounding was there in part, it seemed like, cause everyone was scrambling from the ball movement and Towns' effect on things. And so like, it was really just like dialed in. It's almost like,
it's like the Spurs want to play fast, but the Knicks are like born to like live in that chaotic environment in the way that a younger, still figuring the way out sort of team, especially Wemby with the Spurs, just like hasn't really caught up and married the two things yet.
Yeah. I would say the Spurs did enough to your point, Justin, about like creating that sort of chaos with the pressure, with kind of jamming things up, with making even the Knicks fly around and execute and execute and execute till we saw their limit as well.
Like,
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Chapter 8: How did the physicality of the game influence the outcome?
One basket goes differently, and we're talking about all of these elements of the game in a completely different light, right? Then the press is the thing that won them the game. Then the traps are the thing that won them the game. And so I don't want to over-index or swing too hard on any one of those decisions because they got the Spurs where they needed to be.
There were just a few too many costly mistakes. And I want to say that on the opposite end for the Knicks as well. For as much as Jalen Brunson was put through the ringer, in terms of all sorts of defensive coverage in this game, to come out of it with only four turnovers, I think is like a minor miracle.
He was bad down the stretch. He almost seemed like he spun himself off after kind of going toe-to-toe with Fox. Like some of it was the pressure. Some of it was just missed shots. But he really seemed off immediately after that confrontation.
He was a little bit off, but then the play that I think is going to get lost to history because of the Spurs turnover is that ridiculous Brunson fadeaway that tied the game in the first place. So it's like he did have moments where he was a little bit off kilter, as he is ought to do, as the Knicks are ought to be.
But he's been one of the best crunch time performers all season and certainly has been in the playoffs. And to deliver that in that kind of moment.
they're just there's no putting a price on that there's no way to barter your way out of it like you either had that stuff or you don't and the spurs came up just a little bit short i think what we're seeing is a crisis of um i don't know what the right word for it would be but a crisis of who are your creators basically you're legitimate creators because the spurs are being pressured in this situation where you're talking about you know the the next thing steady it's just
Finding that next guy, and we debated about that next guy to step up, and we debated about whether or not that's going to be Harper or that's going to be
know fox or it's gonna be wimby all those guys we're finding have these conditions around how they're effective um that are playing a huge part of this series i think we saw in the fourth quarter fox just had this like yeah yeah kind of moment where he realized like oh i'm an all-star creator like it didn't even seem like it was a super scheme thing it was just like fox just and i don't know if that i was watching the feed where you could see them during timeouts and i was just really during the playoffs it's really fascinating to watch the benches
how they react and the spurs you know that one they talked about on the broadcast wimby was really ripping into some like he was he was getting on him and i wonder if part of that was fox like be more assertive because he seemed unsure of himself where to be assertive we saw in game one he'd get into the middle of the lane and i've said it you know the three four five with bridges the length and the strength and then og and cat um he's looked a little unsure in a way that he has it in the past getting to that little like 10 footer um he was a little more aggressive but then
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