The Zach Lowe Show
YES 'CERS!! Last Night’s Crazy Comeback With Chris Mannix. Plus, Some Intriguing Offseason Teams With John Hollinger.
Thu, 22 May 2025
Chris Mannix joins Zach to recount a wild night at MSG, as both were in the building for the epic Game 1 between the Pacers and Knicks (1:12). Later, John Hollinger joins to talk about some under-discussed offseason teams (47:13), including the Clippers (1:03:29), Magic (1:20:26), Cavs (1:26:34), and much more. Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Chris Mannix and John Hollinger Producers: Jesse Aron, Chris Wohlers, Bobby Wagner, Oscar De La Luz The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Get started today at HubSpot.com/AI Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened during the epic Knicks vs. Pacers game?
Mikhail Bridges made some bad defensive plays. The two split free throws with Ananobi and Carl Towns, like everything is,
that could have gone wrong for the Knicks went wrong I mean I'd like to think that they can put this behind them because they're as mentally tough a team as I've seen in the postseason like they've got some some dogs in that group guys that have been through a lot and this year alone like Bridges what he's gone through in this year Cat what he's gone through over the last year I'd like to think that they're mentally tough enough to come back from this but I also think that
they might not be as good as the Pacers. I mean, the Pacers, that unconventional style, playing 10, 11 guys, pressing like a college team. It's weird, but it works. And I look at this matchup, and if I could just pick the better team in this moment, I would still pick Indiana to be the better team. So I don't know. It's a long way of saying I think they –
They're going to be able to mentally bounce back, but this just might be a really bad matchup for them overall.
There was a lot of talk about – I saw a lot of talk and heard a lot of talk. I've rewatched the end of the game like seven times. In the car home to Connecticut, I rewatched it like four times, and my brain was still breaking. There was a lot of talk about how the Knicks went into prevent mode on offense and how that cost them. And I actually don't really think that that is all that important.
There were two possessions when they went into prevent mode. Well, they took time off the clock every time, but not every time, actually. The two possessions I think people were talking about are Brunson misses a step back three over Ben Shepard after killing the clock. It's a good look. And he had just made that exact same shot the previous possession. The second one was 141 left to go.
It's still 119, 111. Cat misses a catch and shoot three at the end of the shot clock. Great look like Brunson drew a double team kicked to heart who swung it to the cat. Great look. If you want to say they're in the bonus and they're up by whatever, and they should be trying to get twos or get to the line. Okay, sure. Like Brunson did try to get twos and get to the line.
He got almost triple teamed and was left to kick the ball out. Those are good shots. Other than that, They actually almost went too fast on some of these. Like Brunson got a layup with 58 seconds left. I mean, he just blew by Shepard, put him up by nine. The next possession, they broke the press. Cat laid the ball up in without wasting any time, really hardly at all. Put them back up by eight.
The next possession after that is when it all starts to go haywire. When again, they go fast and Brunson hits Ananobi under the rim with a pass that bounces a little high. Ananobi drops it. There's the challenge on the Siakam loose ball. Like... I don't think prevent offense had much to do with it. The Knicks lost the game on defense.
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Chapter 2: What were the key moments that led to the Pacers' comeback?
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Let's bring in a man that I have referred to before as the best to ever do it, the most important basketball analyst of the modern era, John Hollinger of The Athletic, my old friend, my old colleague. I'm not going to lie to you, John. The assignment today was let's each pick three teams that general classification was we sped by them a little too fast after they got eliminated.
We threw them out of the playoff car, left them on the side of the road, didn't really think so hard about their postseason, offseason dilemmas. And I want to go back now that we only have one game and revisit. And then the Knicks Pacers game happened. And I can't lie to you. My brain is somewhere in the bowels of Madison Square Garden.
So if I suggest to you that the Kings should look into trading Jason Thompson for a protected first-round pick or something like that, just bear with me because it's been a hell of a 24 hours, my friend. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm still recovering from that game as well. Oh, my God. Okay.
I'm going to make the first draft pick in our offseason because I'm greedy and I want to make sure we get to this team. And I'm not sure that you picked them. Okay. So, again, the idea is teams that were eliminated play in or play offs. And we just forgot about them. And we want to give them a little attention because they have some interesting dilemmas. My first pick is the Sacramento Kings.
Okay. They have... You know, ironic that we're bringing them up today after Tyrese Halliburton hits yet another iconic shot. Because you might remember, John, the Kings used to have an abundance of point guards.
Once upon a time.
A plethora of point guards. Now they have kind of none, depending on how you classify Malik Monk and Keon Ellis and Devin Carter, the guy that they drafted and who barely got into rotation after injury. They have Domanis Sabonis looking around like, So do I play for the Bulls now? Or is this the Kings? What's going on? Do I want to be here with all these years left on my contract?
I have a couple of free agents. They have a key on Ellis team option decision. They have a Zach Levine place for the Kings. Did you forget that Zach Levine now plays for the Kings? Cause I kind of did extension decision. They just fired their coach mid season, hired a new coach, total front office turnover. Scott Perry is involved. All of a sudden, Vlade Divac might be involved.
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Chapter 4: What offseason strategies should the Kings consider?
Yeah, I mean, that crossed my mind, but that's, you know, just put a pin in it, I guess. There was some Utah buzz at the combine, and I think that was bogus. You could do like a Sexton Collins draft equity stuff for Utah if Utah is just like, oh, my God, gut punch. We're picking fifth or sixth.
You're trading John Collins back to Atlanta on the same contract that they tried so hard to get rid of.
And the theory going around was, well, Utah just got this gut punch in the lottery. They're just looking at another year of being like 14th or whatever in the toughest conference by far. At what point do they just have to do something, whatever it is, to pair someone with Mark and maybe this is the one that makes sense.
I didn't get the sense that the Jazz were going to be super interested in that. So I don't know. I'm out. That's it for me.
Yeah. So then you get to, do you extend him? Or do you play out the year? I think you probably try to get the extension done, but can you do it for less than the max? That's the real question. Well, that's one to your point, Lake.
and this does not apply to Levine because he's on his third team or whatever and is just not quite the same caliber of player as Trae Young. That's one, like, if you don't get the extension done, it's not a great sign for the relationship between player and team. You know, this is a franchise player. This is a guy you traded Luka for. This is a guy who led you to the conference finals.
He's beloved in Atlanta. Everyone does the ice tray shiver thing. If you don't get that done, That at least sort of changes the dynamic with Trae Young and the Hawks, don't you think?
Absolutely, yeah, yeah. It becomes everyone's looking at their watch then, 100%.
You want to pick one of your teams? I only had one team left, and we have talked about them a bit on this podcast, so I don't need to talk about the version.
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