We'll have to agree to disagree about that, her show made me belly laugh regularly. But honestly I don't really care about that; I just don't know when and why she was booed.
bigger issue is him calling Amin a comedy snob when he loves family guy and andrew schulz. nothing wrong with liking either of those but wouldn’t consider a fan of those two “snobby”
Dude, the 90s Knicks were a straight-up fraud. You know it. Everybody knows it. The fact that just about everyone chooses to go along with acting like they weren't doesn't make it true. They were a good team that got away with playing much, much rougher than anyone else because of Pat Riley and David Stern and the fact they were in New York. They never should have sniffed a title. For God's sake, look at their personnel. Ewing was a HOFer but still probably not a top five guy, and their second best guy was who, Chuck Smith? John Starks? Please. It's absurd. Did they win because they were gutty and gritty?
You're right about Fox and Brunson, though. Particularly Brunson, as the open area near the rim was very important. We can't be sure that was a factor in his taking the shot, but it still goes into the calculus of whether it was a good decision.
I think basketball fans almost require a very strong need to not see the fundamental problem with the game; that it is simply absurd for a game with, what ~100 possessions per game for each team to be decided by one possession, or one half of a possession. The structure of the game, made up of countless, small decisions, constantly made by each individual player, means that as team A falls behind, they make better decisions, choose better shots, and simply try harder. Team B, meanwhile, starts taking poor shots early in their possessions, standing around, and coasting. So this game was a profound example of that. SA made so many obviously horrible decisions in the second half I started pulling for the Knicks (I had no rooting interest in the series, but now I hope NY prevails).
Football games involve 3 hours of intense throws, running, and hitting, and plays of extraordinary skill, but in many cases turn on whether a foot landed on one side of the line or the other, or if the least athletic person on the team can kick accurately.
This is not a problem with basketball though, it's a problem with coaching. They were told to slow the game down way too early.
Every time the intensity dropped should have been a time out, should have gotten yelled at about the finals and he better see high energy defense or you're getting the bench. The Spurs win an endurance contest with the Knicks 100 out of 100.
If a coach did that in football everyone would be clowning him for being incompetent. Basketball coaches get a pass for reasons I don't understand
Some of these takes about last night's legacy are prisoner of the moment for sure. The game was ass with a thrilling ending due to incredibly dumb play by the Spurs. I think it goes into that pool of games like 1998 Game 5 Jazz over Bulls, 2006 Game 5 Heat over Mavericks, or Game 1 Pacers over Thunder last season (which had better ending than last night), where the game was mostly very boring.
Quick set of best Finals games from my memory:
2021 Game 5, Bucks over Suns, Seesaw scoring runs, legacy-making game for Giannis where great play by Bucks decided the outcome.
2016 Game 7, Cavs over Warriors (such a weird game, there were so many missed shots down the stretch and the home crowd just totally clammed up).
2013 Game 6 Heat over Spurs (seems to be considered the current best finals game ever but maybe shouldn't be? There were lots of missed foul shots on both sides before the Allen 3).
2011 Game 4 Mavs over Heat, Dirk flu game, pretty much tight the whole game. At the time it felt like a total legacy game for LeBron, and a failure at that.
2011 Game 2 Mavs over Heat, tight game before two huge swings in the 4th quarter, I think we assumed the Heat were going to roll the series and this was the first indication that they might not.
2005 Game 5 Spurs over Pistons, a Robert Horry game, the only good game of a pretty lame 7 game series.
1998 Game 6 Bulls over Jazz, Pippen's early injury made it feel like the Bulls had just lost the series, in the moment it felt like a much more underdog victory than perhaps we remember it as.
Good list. People definitely forget that Pippen could barely move by the end of the 98 Finals.
2015 Game 1 Warriors over Cavs was sneakily pretty great too, before it got reduced to the game where Kyrie got hurt in OT. LeBron had a would-be game-winner at the end of regulation, and if he'd made it they're up 1-0 and maybe Kyrie doesn't blow out his knee...
One other thing about Fox is he’s still calibrating around not having his normal burst. Always tough for a guy playing through injury to adjust around that real-time. He’s not as bursty as his mind is used to
I think Fox’s failed lay-up is especially terrible because he made numerous mistakes in the fourth quarter. It was part of a pattern and not just the result of one poor decision. We as fans should know that one play doesn’t win or lose games. But when one player makes multiple bad decisions in the clutch then we can start judging him.
Great takes as usual. I also was blown away by the game but perplexed by the overwhelming blame put on Fox. Pretty clearly seemed he reasonably thought he had a wide open layup and did not expect that insanely great play by OG. And if he had not shot the ball he would’ve been immediately fouled and then who knows what happens, the game would've been far from decided.
My real takeaway after watching the last five minutes a couple of times is that the shot making by four different Knicks was incredible (Hart not among them; man he’s lucky his miss didn’t cost them the game!) and far out weighed any mistakes by the Spurs. What a comeback!
The MSG games seemed anticlimactic to me compared to Game 2 and Conference Finals. The broadcast didn't re show the last play but I thought it weird that two fans were standing and crowding Harper on the sideline.
This seemed more Spurs let down than Knicks triumph. It started to feel inevitable in third quarter. Spurs shooting 3's like the Celtics, defense lost its edge, and lazy turn overs. I forgot Castle was playing for stretches of 4th. I didn't trust Fox or Wemby but offense was going through them alone except for jump shots. I wanted Castle to take last shot since I trusted his hands most.
OG is most consistent Knicks player. Still too much Brunson in fourth but I guess it worked. The Game 2 intensity seemed so much higher and exhausting. In Game 4 it seemed like the Spurs just got bored
Looking at past NBA champions, most have had to take their lumps having lost in the 1st, 2nd, or Confernce Championship before getting over the hump and winning a championship. The Spurs went from being a non-playoff team to the NBA Finals in one year. Ultimately, they overachieved this year. Many including myself thought OKC would be in the Finals from the West when the season started. Now, the overachieving Spurs are on a national stage and the country gets to see all their warts including untimely turnovers, time management problems, immaturity etc. Most of these things would normally result in a 2nd round or conference finals loss leading to a team getting better and learning from their mistakes only to win a championship shortly after.
The Spurs may win championship but it won’t be this year. I believe Wembanyama wants to be labeled the best to ever play the game. Well, that was a legacy defining game and this is a legacy defining series and to lose a 29 pt lead will be attached to Wemby forever. The same way LeBron can never overcome that Dallas Finals in many minds when it comes to the GOAT conversation, Wemby likely won’t be able to overcome this loss when it comes to this conversation.
Fox would have also been taking these free throws in a manic environment where Wemby, a 90% FT shooter, had just missed two. Not that he was running these calculations in his head, but it makes the choice as defensible on analytical grounds. It's far from clear that:
2*(Layup Probability)
has a significantly less impact on the win probability than:
(FT Probability) + (FT Probability) + (Impact of additional time burned before being fouled) - Probability of turnover before being fouled
Chuck was too rough on him for that.
---
Some thoughts from the BS podcast:
Despite the missed lay-up and boxout, there is *no universe* in which Josh Hart's name becomes synonymous with Charles Smith. Charles Smith was a "soft" (at least in the context of the 90s Knicks) power forward who got stuffed on several attempts by smaller, tougher players (Pippen and Jordan). The stuffed put-backs were consistent with this narrative. Josh Hart is an effort-first player who opposing teams leave open, and sometimes burns them. The missed lay-up was somehwat in character, the missed box out seemed like a brain fart. But nobody thinks that's who he is.
Another talk was that the Spurs should "hunt' Brunson like the Knicks "hunted" Harden in the ECF. My suspicion is that, because of the Knicks culture, they would not allow that to work. Obviously, everyone wants to win, but I just don't see the Knicks letting the Spurs embarrass their leader. But maybe I'm drinking the Kool-Aid.
I'm curious as to whether we can now heal as a nation and acknowledge that the NBA is not dying and has not been surpassed by Major League Baseball? Can we at least take that baby step?
Remember when all those super smart algorithm jockey NBA insiders were informing you the ratings for this Series would be "disastrous" and that the real Championship occurred with the Western Conference Finals?
Sure, you do. Just as it wasn't over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, the NBA has risen again from the ashes like Phoenix...the bird that is, not the Suns.
Let's assume that this Series ends at Game 5 in San Antonio. Can you imagine a World Series going 5 games and creating the drama and discussion - while captivating the public at large - the way the NBA Finals have?
That's a rhetorical question BTW.
It's time to stop the tiresome wheel of grievances content each season around what ills the NBA and instead surface long enough to acknowledge that the faster paced NBA's ability to create drama is unmatched by the slower moving and deliberately paced baseball that tends to squeeze out unexpected human reactions to pressure and stress. Nobody is losing their mind at an airport screaming at the screen for a player to dribble out the pitch clock.
Maybe the vibe shifted when the NBA resolved the massive "dark energy" crisis of the 2025 Championship logo-free courts. Regardless, as December nears and the media saturation bombs us with the lazy talking point around the supposed "lost momentum" of baseball heading into a lockout, let's all appreciate the NBA for just a moment...
...and before every local sports talk radio "personality" spins that wheel of grievances again to land on why the NBA uniforms are ugly or corner 3s are a moral hazard.
The heralded MSG crowd was surprisingly reactive to physicality and referees. I was a Bulls fan in the 90's and this surprised me. A new era.
Regarding the last play tip: I hadn't noticed it. I rewatched the last few minutes of the game. You could argue that Castle didn't step out of bounds and that OG fouled Fox in the air before touching the ball .
These are solid takes.
Inside Amy Schumer show was objectively hilarious. I'm clearly not online enough; when/why did she get booed?
Amy Schumer has a unique style of comedy where there are no jokes and nobody laughs.
We'll have to agree to disagree about that, her show made me belly laugh regularly. But honestly I don't really care about that; I just don't know when and why she was booed.
bigger issue is him calling Amin a comedy snob when he loves family guy and andrew schulz. nothing wrong with liking either of those but wouldn’t consider a fan of those two “snobby”
Amin and Ethan are close; I read that as gentle ribbing
loved the first special
Dude, the 90s Knicks were a straight-up fraud. You know it. Everybody knows it. The fact that just about everyone chooses to go along with acting like they weren't doesn't make it true. They were a good team that got away with playing much, much rougher than anyone else because of Pat Riley and David Stern and the fact they were in New York. They never should have sniffed a title. For God's sake, look at their personnel. Ewing was a HOFer but still probably not a top five guy, and their second best guy was who, Chuck Smith? John Starks? Please. It's absurd. Did they win because they were gutty and gritty?
You're right about Fox and Brunson, though. Particularly Brunson, as the open area near the rim was very important. We can't be sure that was a factor in his taking the shot, but it still goes into the calculus of whether it was a good decision.
I think basketball fans almost require a very strong need to not see the fundamental problem with the game; that it is simply absurd for a game with, what ~100 possessions per game for each team to be decided by one possession, or one half of a possession. The structure of the game, made up of countless, small decisions, constantly made by each individual player, means that as team A falls behind, they make better decisions, choose better shots, and simply try harder. Team B, meanwhile, starts taking poor shots early in their possessions, standing around, and coasting. So this game was a profound example of that. SA made so many obviously horrible decisions in the second half I started pulling for the Knicks (I had no rooting interest in the series, but now I hope NY prevails).
Football games involve 3 hours of intense throws, running, and hitting, and plays of extraordinary skill, but in many cases turn on whether a foot landed on one side of the line or the other, or if the least athletic person on the team can kick accurately.
This is not a problem with basketball though, it's a problem with coaching. They were told to slow the game down way too early.
Every time the intensity dropped should have been a time out, should have gotten yelled at about the finals and he better see high energy defense or you're getting the bench. The Spurs win an endurance contest with the Knicks 100 out of 100.
If a coach did that in football everyone would be clowning him for being incompetent. Basketball coaches get a pass for reasons I don't understand
Some of these takes about last night's legacy are prisoner of the moment for sure. The game was ass with a thrilling ending due to incredibly dumb play by the Spurs. I think it goes into that pool of games like 1998 Game 5 Jazz over Bulls, 2006 Game 5 Heat over Mavericks, or Game 1 Pacers over Thunder last season (which had better ending than last night), where the game was mostly very boring.
Quick set of best Finals games from my memory:
2021 Game 5, Bucks over Suns, Seesaw scoring runs, legacy-making game for Giannis where great play by Bucks decided the outcome.
2016 Game 7, Cavs over Warriors (such a weird game, there were so many missed shots down the stretch and the home crowd just totally clammed up).
2013 Game 6 Heat over Spurs (seems to be considered the current best finals game ever but maybe shouldn't be? There were lots of missed foul shots on both sides before the Allen 3).
2011 Game 4 Mavs over Heat, Dirk flu game, pretty much tight the whole game. At the time it felt like a total legacy game for LeBron, and a failure at that.
2011 Game 2 Mavs over Heat, tight game before two huge swings in the 4th quarter, I think we assumed the Heat were going to roll the series and this was the first indication that they might not.
2005 Game 5 Spurs over Pistons, a Robert Horry game, the only good game of a pretty lame 7 game series.
1998 Game 6 Bulls over Jazz, Pippen's early injury made it feel like the Bulls had just lost the series, in the moment it felt like a much more underdog victory than perhaps we remember it as.
Yet, according to the internet last week, Pippen was carrying the team, and about to win the Finals MVP...
Good list. People definitely forget that Pippen could barely move by the end of the 98 Finals.
2015 Game 1 Warriors over Cavs was sneakily pretty great too, before it got reduced to the game where Kyrie got hurt in OT. LeBron had a would-be game-winner at the end of regulation, and if he'd made it they're up 1-0 and maybe Kyrie doesn't blow out his knee...
One other thing about Fox is he’s still calibrating around not having his normal burst. Always tough for a guy playing through injury to adjust around that real-time. He’s not as bursty as his mind is used to
I think Fox’s failed lay-up is especially terrible because he made numerous mistakes in the fourth quarter. It was part of a pattern and not just the result of one poor decision. We as fans should know that one play doesn’t win or lose games. But when one player makes multiple bad decisions in the clutch then we can start judging him.
If the Spurs weren't so young/dumb/both, they'd be up 3-1 right now.
Also-- hey guys! Taylor Swift cares about basketball now!
I think it's great when Taylor Swift is there, it gets my gf more excited to watch the game with me. I hope she goes to every sporting event!
Did you know she bakes her own bread too, guys!?1 She's just like us!!! 😍
Here’s an extra ❤️ because Substack only lets you give one.
Great takes as usual. I also was blown away by the game but perplexed by the overwhelming blame put on Fox. Pretty clearly seemed he reasonably thought he had a wide open layup and did not expect that insanely great play by OG. And if he had not shot the ball he would’ve been immediately fouled and then who knows what happens, the game would've been far from decided.
My real takeaway after watching the last five minutes a couple of times is that the shot making by four different Knicks was incredible (Hart not among them; man he’s lucky his miss didn’t cost them the game!) and far out weighed any mistakes by the Spurs. What a comeback!
Wemby was 2-9 and missed two late guys in the fourth. Add to that a 55-25 ass kicking following his Flagrant.
Fox's share can be discussed after a thorough Wemby exam!
Amy Schumer was never funny. I think less of you now Ethan.
The MSG games seemed anticlimactic to me compared to Game 2 and Conference Finals. The broadcast didn't re show the last play but I thought it weird that two fans were standing and crowding Harper on the sideline.
This seemed more Spurs let down than Knicks triumph. It started to feel inevitable in third quarter. Spurs shooting 3's like the Celtics, defense lost its edge, and lazy turn overs. I forgot Castle was playing for stretches of 4th. I didn't trust Fox or Wemby but offense was going through them alone except for jump shots. I wanted Castle to take last shot since I trusted his hands most.
OG is most consistent Knicks player. Still too much Brunson in fourth but I guess it worked. The Game 2 intensity seemed so much higher and exhausting. In Game 4 it seemed like the Spurs just got bored
Looking at past NBA champions, most have had to take their lumps having lost in the 1st, 2nd, or Confernce Championship before getting over the hump and winning a championship. The Spurs went from being a non-playoff team to the NBA Finals in one year. Ultimately, they overachieved this year. Many including myself thought OKC would be in the Finals from the West when the season started. Now, the overachieving Spurs are on a national stage and the country gets to see all their warts including untimely turnovers, time management problems, immaturity etc. Most of these things would normally result in a 2nd round or conference finals loss leading to a team getting better and learning from their mistakes only to win a championship shortly after.
The Spurs may win championship but it won’t be this year. I believe Wembanyama wants to be labeled the best to ever play the game. Well, that was a legacy defining game and this is a legacy defining series and to lose a 29 pt lead will be attached to Wemby forever. The same way LeBron can never overcome that Dallas Finals in many minds when it comes to the GOAT conversation, Wemby likely won’t be able to overcome this loss when it comes to this conversation.
Fox would have also been taking these free throws in a manic environment where Wemby, a 90% FT shooter, had just missed two. Not that he was running these calculations in his head, but it makes the choice as defensible on analytical grounds. It's far from clear that:
2*(Layup Probability)
has a significantly less impact on the win probability than:
(FT Probability) + (FT Probability) + (Impact of additional time burned before being fouled) - Probability of turnover before being fouled
Chuck was too rough on him for that.
---
Some thoughts from the BS podcast:
Despite the missed lay-up and boxout, there is *no universe* in which Josh Hart's name becomes synonymous with Charles Smith. Charles Smith was a "soft" (at least in the context of the 90s Knicks) power forward who got stuffed on several attempts by smaller, tougher players (Pippen and Jordan). The stuffed put-backs were consistent with this narrative. Josh Hart is an effort-first player who opposing teams leave open, and sometimes burns them. The missed lay-up was somehwat in character, the missed box out seemed like a brain fart. But nobody thinks that's who he is.
Another talk was that the Spurs should "hunt' Brunson like the Knicks "hunted" Harden in the ECF. My suspicion is that, because of the Knicks culture, they would not allow that to work. Obviously, everyone wants to win, but I just don't see the Knicks letting the Spurs embarrass their leader. But maybe I'm drinking the Kool-Aid.
I'm curious as to whether we can now heal as a nation and acknowledge that the NBA is not dying and has not been surpassed by Major League Baseball? Can we at least take that baby step?
Remember when all those super smart algorithm jockey NBA insiders were informing you the ratings for this Series would be "disastrous" and that the real Championship occurred with the Western Conference Finals?
Sure, you do. Just as it wasn't over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, the NBA has risen again from the ashes like Phoenix...the bird that is, not the Suns.
Let's assume that this Series ends at Game 5 in San Antonio. Can you imagine a World Series going 5 games and creating the drama and discussion - while captivating the public at large - the way the NBA Finals have?
That's a rhetorical question BTW.
It's time to stop the tiresome wheel of grievances content each season around what ills the NBA and instead surface long enough to acknowledge that the faster paced NBA's ability to create drama is unmatched by the slower moving and deliberately paced baseball that tends to squeeze out unexpected human reactions to pressure and stress. Nobody is losing their mind at an airport screaming at the screen for a player to dribble out the pitch clock.
Maybe the vibe shifted when the NBA resolved the massive "dark energy" crisis of the 2025 Championship logo-free courts. Regardless, as December nears and the media saturation bombs us with the lazy talking point around the supposed "lost momentum" of baseball heading into a lockout, let's all appreciate the NBA for just a moment...
...and before every local sports talk radio "personality" spins that wheel of grievances again to land on why the NBA uniforms are ugly or corner 3s are a moral hazard.
The 2026 Spurs:
Young, Dumb, and Down 3-1
The heralded MSG crowd was surprisingly reactive to physicality and referees. I was a Bulls fan in the 90's and this surprised me. A new era.
Regarding the last play tip: I hadn't noticed it. I rewatched the last few minutes of the game. You could argue that Castle didn't step out of bounds and that OG fouled Fox in the air before touching the ball .
Looked at it again. I don't think OG ever got ball. It was body then arm.