Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Stella Blue Coffee is more than just great coffee, it's coffee with a purpose. Introducing We Brew to Rescue, a nationwide campaign using proceeds from our new ready-to-drink cans to help fund 1,000 pet adoptions this year. Every can you crack open helps a real pet find a real home. Simple as that. Made with 100% Colombian coffee, each 11-ounce can delivers smooth, drinkable energy with a boost of protein. Available in Espresso Cafe Mocha and Espresso Sweet Cream. Built for mornings, long days, and everything in between. Drink Stella Blue, fuel your day, and help save a pet's life. You can follow our progress in real time throughout the campaign by watching the adoption tracker on our site. Grab yours now at StellaBlueCoffee.com, Amazon, and select retailers nationwide. On today's part of My Take presented by DraftKings, the New York Knicks are up 2-nothing in the NBA Finals. No games over the weekend, which was weird, but we have our good friend Brian Winhorst on the show. To tell us what the Spurs can do to get out of this hole, or is it going to be a coronation for the Knicks as early as Wednesday night?
We're also going to talk Stanley Cup Final, probably the craziest first 3 games to a Stanley Cup Final ever. It's been insane. We had another overtime game with 3 goals in 39 seconds. It was nuts. We're going to, uh, do Who's Back of the Week. Some national sports podcast topics. I also have a fun game for us that I'd like to play.
I like fun games. I like the fun games.
So that's a little teaser. You guys want to play a fun game? You guys are down to play a fun game?
I love fun games.
All right, so we'll play a fun game. It's all brought to you by our friends at Experian. It's never too late to improve your credit with Experian Boost. You can raise your credit scores instantly for free. Get credit for the bills you're already paying. Add your positive rent, utility, and even streaming payments to instantly increase your credit scores. Boost your credit scores instantly. Experian Boost is completely free and can instantly raise your credit scores. Get better credit scores. Get credit for the bills you're already paying. Increase your credit scores instantly for free. Now paying rent could boost your credit scores instantly. Download the app and get started for free today. Results will vary. Not all payments are Boost eligible or considered by lenders. See experian.com for details. Okay, let's go. Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Monday, June 8th, and the New York Knicks are 2 games away. Oh, you're going to clap. You want to say—
I was about to clap.
You want to say it?
The New York Knicks are world champions.
Actually, no, fuck that. Congrats to Knicks and all their fans.
Congrats, memes. Congrats, Zach.
Way to go.
2-0 going back to the Mecca, back to New York.
It's going to be a movie Monday night. It's going to be insane. I actually do believe that. I, uh, it's rare that there's a game that you're like hyped for when you have no rooting interest, and I am hyped for what the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals are going to look like at MSG. I think it's going to be absolutely nuts. The crowd is going to be nuts. The president's going to be there, which by the way, that part does suck that no one can do. Uh, I think they canceled the outdoor watch parties. That sucks. Yeah, they should let the— have— let, let the boys watch.
It does suck. But on the other hand, Mitchell Robinson is going to go nuclear with Trump courtside. That's like everything he's ever hoped for.
It's going to be an absolute scene. So Friday night, to recap, Friday night we had another, uh, well, the first game the Knicks ended up winning convincingly. Friday night was an instant classic fourth quarter because we had the Knicks looking like they were going to cruise to a 2-0 lead The Spurs come all the way back, and then in the last 2 minutes, I don't know if we should say— and we're going to talk to Brian Windhorst— that the moment was too big for the San Antonio Spurs, because this is a storyline that they're the youngest team to be in the NBA Finals, and you have a core that is all under 25 years old, and, and Wemby's first trip, you know, first meaningful, first playoffs, and he gets all the way to the Finals. But the The end of game sequence where Victor Wembenyama tries to pass the ball to Steph Castle in transition and throws it off his back for a turnover for Brunson going to the free throw line, hitting one. And then Wemby, who got a good look, missing the final shot. It was tough.
It was about as bad a last minute as you can possibly have.
Yeah.
For Wemby. It was— I— plain and simple, he choked. That was a big time choke at the end.
He—
you got to look before you throw that pass. It was an ill-advised pass to make. And then out of frustration, he just— he commits a bad foul. I, I think Wimby's to blame, obviously, for everything that happened at the end of this game. I think we should be fair. Mitch Johnson should get some blame for the way these two games have gone. Like, can you imagine Pop losing these two games back to back?
Pop did talk to the team after the first two games, so maybe he helped. But yes, I agree. I tweeted it in the moment. I thought Mitch Johnson not calling a timeout there was crazy. They have one timeout left. There's 7 seconds left, or whatever it was, 10 seconds left. It's a tie game. I understand transition is kind of how the Spurs got back in the game. They were attacking the hoop. They were getting out fast. But you have, you have, you have 10 seconds left. Call a timeout. Call up your best play. If Brunson's on the floor, attack Brunson. Like, the worst ha— the thing that happens is you go to overtime. Instead, I, I just, I just feel like that's a moment where it's like, you have, you know, you got to know your personnel. You got to know you got a young team. Call timeout, get your best play, and you get a shot to potentially win without the risk of losing in regulation, which is what ended up happening.
I was talking to our good friend Mark Titus about this, but I've, I've noticed it more so from the Thunder and, and a little bit from the Spurs now, um, the 2-for-1 at the end of the game. It's the right call statistically. The nerds have crunched all the numbers. You got to get the 2-for-1, get 2 shots, uh, when you can. Um, but the shots that are being put up in the first half of the 2-for-1 They can be kind of ridiculous. And when you, when you put up a bad shot, it also— I want to see what the numbers are, but I would assume that the likelihood of a fast break or getting like, you know, a numbers overload off that miss, off a bad miss and a long rebound, are higher than if you get a normal shot that you run like a standard play that's not rushed.
I would agree.
And I think that sometimes if you put up, if you, if you try super, super hard and make sure to get that 2-for-1 up, no matter what the cost is, that actually ends up hurting you a little bit. I think Wemby's shot that he had the front half of 2-for-1 was terrible.
It was an awful shot. It was a rough shot.
Very rough shot.
And Wemby was bad in the first half again. Like, you have to— we have— and this is all relative because I understand this is his first time in the NBA Finals. He's 22 years old. He's a future face of this league if Scottie Barnes stops playing basketball. But that's part of like part of being the future face of this league is that you get the criticism when you are not dominant and this is your team. In the first half, he was not. Can Wemby look— he looked gassed. He looked off.
Can he win the big one?
I did. You hear afterwards he said that he, he maybe celebrated a little too hard. You know, I don't think he was getting drunk, but like maybe didn't move on quickly enough from the Western Conference Final.
He also said that this is everything that I wished for, being down 2-0.
Yeah.
Having the opportunity to come back from that.
I will— when we talk to Windhorst, I want to— I want to get— because Windhorst, I don't know if you guys know, but he is the Wemby whisperer. He's the one who found him. Um, but yeah, I, I can't tell if part of me— like, I think Wemby is ultra confident, and why wouldn't you be if you're a 7'5" freak? I also did the quote saying, this is everything that I wish for, so there's no reason to really overthink it. I mean, this is what I'm built for, when talking about being down 0-2 in the finals. It feels like he's almost like, this is what I'm supposed to say if I'm gonna be a Kobe MJ type of guy.
I love being down. Yeah, I mean, yeah, 2-0, 2-0, most dangerous lead in basketball.
You know, it'd be great is that he didn't blow the first 2 games by not playing up to your standard.
Embrace debate. Would you rather be up 2-0 or down 2-0 in the NBA Finals?
I would rather be up 2-0.
Not me. See, I'm like mama mentality, especially at home. I want to be down and I want to be going on the road into Madison Square Garden. Mm-hmm. That's, that's the ideal spot to be in.
I also— back to Mitch Johnson real quick. I, I don't agree with— so the start of the sequence was actually the beginning of the, the possession when the Knicks had the ball and they fouled intentionally because they had a foul to give. I don't like that. I, I think if you're gonna foul when you— when, like, in that situation, I just, I, I don't really understand it because now you then have the, the second situation happen where Jalen Brunson's in the bonus.
Well, I think they, they fouled way too quick, right?
But it's just like, don't even, don't even foul there. Let it play out. You, you actually, it's actually good that you have a foul to give because it isn't automatically at the free throw line if you foul on the floor.
Yeah. If you're going to foul though, you got to wait a little bit longer than that. And I, it's not just that one instance at the end and then, you know, not calling a timeout. I do think that the way that the Spurs have played with leads, I feel like you have to put some of that blame on their head coach.
Well, I also think the lineups, I mean, we've, we've talked about it. We've, we've been talking about Dylan Harper and how awesome he has been. And the Dylan Harper, the Dylan Harper-Wemby lineup has been incredible in this series. The— I can't remember. Let me try to find it. Oh, yeah, here it is. Oh, no, this is— this is just Wemby's stat. But I'm pretty sure the Dylan Harper and Wemby on the floor together has been really, really good. Steph Castle, as much as I love him, like he was in foul trouble. He plays with an energy that might be— he might be the guy who you want to bring off the bench. I don't know. You're down 2-0 and you're— you lost the first two games at home. It might be time to switch some things up.
You got to figure something else out, right?
Because it does feel like the Knicks are just the better team. And the Knicks, I mean, that one possession where they had the ball movement that was just— are you— is your computer playing something? Yeah, it's off now. Um, that was incredible. The ball movement on that one possession, like the Knicks are just— and they're doing it with everyone. Jalen Brunson has not been like super dumb. I mean, outside the fourth quarter in game one, it's not been like the Jalen Brunson show. It's been the entire Knicks Team. Karl-Anthony Towns has been sensational. Mikal Bridges has been awesome. Like, everyone is doing it, memes. It's been crazy to watch.
That game was also rigged for the—
oh yeah, that's true. They were really trying— the refs, they actually rescinded Mitchell Robinson's, uh, flagrant the next day.
And if they didn't—
if the Knicks had used their challenge and they didn't challenge the OG3, like, they wouldn't have had any free throws in the second.
Yeah, yeah. But it was— but like think about it. You've— you— if you're the Spurs and you went into these NBA Finals and I told you that, uh, in Game 1, uh, Jalen Brunson would have 30 points on 31 shots, and in Game 2 he'd have 20 points on 25 shots, you would sign up for that every single day of the week. You'd be like, oh, we're probably winning this series. Yeah, but the difference is KAT, Mikal Bridges, Josh Hart being everywhere, Landry Shamet just being the greatest shooter ever right now. Like, it's the whole team. The whole Knicks team. Yeah, the whole Knicks team has just been awesome. They've been— everyone has stepped up in big moments.
And Josh Hart's commitment to not really scoring any points at all, but zero points, but getting every single loose ball that's ever existed. Yeah, I do. They play a very entertaining brand of basketball. And the scary thing for the Spurs is you have to imagine that Jalen Brunson is going to have one of these nights he's going to go off. Yeah. And he hasn't done it yet. And you're 0-2. Looking at some subpar play from Jalen Brunson. That's a scary place to be for the Spurs. Um, congrats though. Congrats, Memes. Congrats, Zach.
Let's hear from me and Zach.
You guys are just dominant right now.
What do you guys got?
Maybe the best team in the history of the playoffs.
We gotta stop with the congrats.
I mean, 13 in a row is insane. This is— it— third— you guys have not lost since April.
I know, but you're still, still 2 more wins away.
What did Shefford say? The night of the NFL Draft, that was the last time that the Knicks—
yeah, that was right. The, the Knicks lost the game right as the Jets were picking.
Yeah, and, and the Mets let up a grand slam to tie the game.
Yeah, that was a bad—
I saw someone tweeted a stat that the Celtics have lost 3 times, uh, more recently than the Knicks. Is that true?
Yeah, that's crazy.
Celtics got bounced in the first round. Holy shit. Yeah, it's, it's, it's an insane run you guys are on. So can we congratulate you?
We can't be doing the early selling thing.
What makes you scared of this Spurs team? I, I, and I, I know It is a long series. Like, there could still be a chance that if the Spurs win this Game 3, then, then things get a little tighter. I truly think the Knicks are just a better basketball team all around than the Spurs. That's just— and, and the lines also don't— are they like 1.5-point favorites?
Uh, it was 2.5 when I last—
they were, they were 6.5-point dogs in Game 2. They were 5.5-point dogs in Game 1. I don't get it. They're bet— they're a better basketball team. Like, I— 2.5-point favorites. I, I, I don't know what to say, memes. They're the better basketball team. No. Yes, anything could happen, but they're the better basketball team.
It does look like men versus boys right now, right?
And it just— everyone is chipping in. Like, you even— I, I was impressed, I will say. De'Aaron Fox, like, answered. He was, he was bad in game 1. And he was, uh, great in Game 2. And like, he, he answered that. He was very, very efficient. He was aggressive. And, and overall, like, the Spurs hit a lot more shot— you know, like, they shot better and they had more contributions for— they had contributions from more guys. But it still doesn't matter because the Knicks, they defend. That's the thing is the Knicks defend too at such a high level that it's just— it's so hard. I was shocked that they gave up that lead And then I was, I was not shocked they won the game though, because they're the better basketball team.
99 out of 100 times that shot goes in, like the history of the Knicks. The one shot at the end, like it goes in and the Knicks are dead and then they, they get reverse, reverse sweeped.
A gentleman sweep.
Gentleman sweep. But like we're living in that timeline where it's the one shot missed.
Do you want to talk some crazy timelines? I got some crazy stats for you. Yes. This is just— these are, these are perfect PMT stats that are not— if you come to this show looking for like on/off numbers and, you know, switches and no, we're not going to do that. What are you shaking your head for, Max?
You just don't do that here.
You shake your head so weirdly. But what we do do is— or I would call it— we're more aura stats guys, whereas vibes. And stupid numbers and stupid coincidences. So here's the, here's the first one, memes. Uh, there was no NBA Finals game on Saturday or Sunday this weekend. The only other years without a Sunday game in the NBA Finals— so there's no NBA Finals game at all in this series on Sunday. The only other time that there was no NBA Finals game on a Sunday in a series, 1999, Spurs beat the Knicks. Also 1970, the Knicks beat the Lakers.
That is crazy.
So that's a 1-1 stat right there. That's wild. Do you want another 1-1 stat that we, we don't know? Okay, uh, here's the other 1-1 stat. 1976 NBA Finals, the Celtics take a 2-0 lead and win in 6 games. 1986 Finals, the Celtics take a 2-0 lead and win in 6 games. 1996 Finals, the Bulls take a 2-0 lead and win in 6 games. So this is every 10 years, team takes 2-0 lead and wins in 6 games. 2006 Finals, Mavericks blow a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals. 2016 NBA Finals, Warriors blow a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals. Now we're 2026. That's every day, every decade for the last 50 years, every series started 2-0, 3 in a row 2-0. The way the team that went up 2-0, 1-6. The last 2, 2-0. Team that went up 2-0 blew it.
But the good news is if you guys go up 3-0, it's over.
Yeah. Why do you— what do you think about that stat?
It's over.
Again, these are dumb stats.
It's already over.
It's not over.
What do you think about that stat?
I didn't like that one.
That one's not nice. That one's not a nice stat.
What were they at home to start or away?
Uh, I don't know. No, because the Warriors were definitely at home, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. So that, so that helps.
Yeah.
I don't like that stat.
Yeah. That's not a nice stat.
I think, uh, uh, the Knicks having Mikal Bridges though helps. He was on that Suns team that blew the— they won 2 games at home. Giannis won 4 straight. With the Bucks, and he just keeps reiterating that to the locker room.
So he's like just constantly panicked by it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, that was the NBA Finals. Yeah, the, the, the Bucks lost their first two games at home.
Yeah, so Mikal's battling demons with that. Mike Brown got swept by the Spurs first time. Like, they're all just— it's nice having a team that's just all peaking after battling so many demons throughout the NBA and just being thrown away. Yeah, and now they're just like the perfect team. I just want to watch this team forever.
The perfect team. They are, they are playing like the perfect team. You can't, you actually can't disagree with that the way that they've been going for the last like month and a half.
No, and it all started with the Hawks.
Yeah, yeah, which again, thank you to the Hawks.
You, Memes did call it correct. He called it correctly then incorrectly. He called it correctly that the Hawks were a terrible matchup for the Knicks. They have proven so far through, I know we're only halfway through the NBA Finals or you know, 2 games in, but they've, they've proven thus far that to be the biggest test to the Knicks this postseason. But also memes when he, when the Hawks were up 2-1 was like, did we blowing up, we're trading everyone for, for Giannis, and now we're sitting here and from that comment you have not lost the game.
Yeah, but that's just motivation. It's like you either win some games or you're living in Milwaukee.
Yeah, that's true. You, you basically told the entire Knicks organization, get ready to learn Milwaukee. Get ready to learn cheese curds.
Yeah, because at that point it just felt like the fans wanted it more, and now it feels like they want it more. I mean, they haven't smiled in like 2 months.
Yeah, Brunson does not smile.
Yeah, you know how I know that the Knicks are probably going to win this whole thing is because we've already got people coming out of the woodwork just trying to like grasp at the final straws, being like, yeah, well, you guys tampered to get Jalen Brunson, so this shouldn't even count. Is that true? Yeah. I lost a second round pick for it.
Mm-hmm.
Knicks tampered?
Yeah.
Well, Leon Rose's son is Jalen Brunson's agent.
That's where the—
Right. I mean, no, I'm actually taking your side on this. I'm like, it's loser talk to even bring this up. If the punishment was a second round pick, to bring it up to try to like take it away from you before you've already done it, that's how you know that you're winning. This is like the last straw that they could possibly grasp at, and it's meaningless. I agree with you.
We just need 2 more. The Spurs are still a really good basketball team.
They're really young.
They've been playing better. Yeah, but what— I mean, I think we've got enough of a sample size to prove that Wemby can't win the big one. Right?
I think he's got a clutch gene problem. Yeah, that's what I think.
Through 2 games, he can't win the big one.
Let me ask you this, Big Cat.
That's a fact, memes.
Did Michael Jordan ever throw a pass off of Scottie Pippen's back when they're— when they have a chance to win the game?
He never lost an NBA Finals.
No, I, I— Jordan never did it.
He never lost an NBA Finals. But memes, he doesn't have a clutch gene. The moment is too big.
He did say his, his eyes were like blurry after the game. Yeah, the memory of it was blurry.
How many people do you think got duped by the AI of him walking down the— oh, Max put his hand up. He didn't even have to finish it. There was an AI version of Wemby going in the tunnel, maybe 4 steps, and then he like collapsed and started crying. You gotta— I mean, come on, it's Game 2. There's no way that was real.
Head on a swivel.
Did you have Embiid flashbacks? Is that what it was?
Yeah, I had a tweet that I was about to— that I was about to rip.
Oh no.
About— because someone was like, I want my— if your star player doesn't react like this after a tough loss, I don't want him. And then I was starting to get mad because people absolutely destroyed Embiid for that. And then I was like, you know what, let's not make this about Embiid. And then I deleted the tweet and then saw the replies that they were all— that it was like, this is AI, this is AI.
I was like, all right, so good.
Good win, good win.
Uh, Hank, how are you handling this knowing that the Knicks will soon be in play for the Team of the '20s?
Yeah, I mean, they're there and they're gonna sweep this series and probably have a case to be one of the greatest teams of all time. It's tough. I did, I put an absolute nuke on the Knicks because I just knew that, you know, the Spurs were gassed and they didn't have what it takes and I was So I was kind of rooting for the Knicks in that game because I bet a big bet on it and it was like the game was so rigged for the Knicks. So rigged. And somehow the Knicks still won. It's over. I mean, the, the, the scene in MSG on, on Monday is going to be insane. And even if they, they can lose the next 3 games, I still think they win. They're not going to, they're not going to lose any of them.
Wait, they can lose the next 3 games and still win?
Yeah.
What? Yeah, I think if the— I'll say right now, if the Knicks lose the next 3 games, they could be in a little bit of trouble. I'm gonna say that. I'm just gonna be blatantly on— like, that would be a— I'd be nervous if I were Knicks fans being like, hey, we just lost 3 in a row including 2 at home. That feels like that would be a pretty bad momentum swing.
But yeah, I mean, Knicks fans are insufferable and they're all coming out of the woodwork. And it's, it's, it's tough, but you have to just accept it is what it is. There's nothing, there's no, as much as I want to hate, hate, hate, it's like they, this team cannot be stopped.
What do you mean they're all coming out of the woodwork? I feel like Knicks fans, now you could, you could not like the Knicks fan base.
I'm just happy we're not in New York.
But in that much, but in terms of like diehard fan bases that have been through shit, I think the Knicks are high up there. Like the Knicks are, the Knicks have some crazy diehards.
You don't think that Knicks fans keep their fandom close to the vest?
I don't think so.
No.
Yeah, I mean, I guess, I mean, I guess this is what happens when teams make championship runs, is like, you know, not saying like anyone here, but there's just people I see on social media and stuff, like when we were in New York, where it's like all of a sudden they're like going to the bars and like, that's what you're—
yeah, okay, yeah, the New York transplants.
Yeah, it also— Hank's right, it's like, how come, oh, you're such big Knicks fans, I don't remember you guys tweeting so much about the NBA Finals when the Knicks weren't playing in them. Like, of course they're going to be more locked in when their team is in the fucking finals.
Also, New York's got to be electric right now.
Like, oh, looks disgusting.
Oh my God, you can't come hot trash on the street. It has to be.
Oh, mystery water hitting you when you walk down the sidewalk.
Yeah, there's got to be like a sense of just joy around New York City right now that is, that is electric.
Tickertape parade if they win.
Canyon of Heroes. Yeah.
I looked it up the other day, but I didn't even realize that the— like, we're going down like their, their parade route is Broadway.
Yeah, it's right by our office. Yeah. Yeah.
You should go.
No. Did you see— did you see the—
you and me should go together.
Oh, you, you videotape me?
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm busy.
Did you see the get-in price now is what, $10,000?
Crazy.
Sheesh. I thought about buying a ticket.
Did you?
Yeah.
That's—
that's just—
I would throw up if they lost.
Yeah, I know. That's the thing. It's like, I get it for Game 4 or 6, but Game 3, like, that is electric. But $10,000, a lot of fucking money.
That's—
it's crazy.
It's so much.
It's crazy.
What do you think is the most hyped event at MSG? Game 3 or the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce wedding? Yeah.
I was going to talk about this.
Yeah. I mean, it's—
how tacky is that?
Well, I do believe it.
It's real.
Yeah.
Oh, I don't.
They're going to invite 1,000 people to MSG.
I feel like this is— I feel like they're pulling a fast one. Well, I think there's two scenarios going on, and I could be very, very wrong because I— you know what? I am hoping that I am right because I don't— I agree, tacky as hell if they actually do this. I think either one, they sent out a bunch of dummy invites being like, we know we have a rat somewhere in our group and let's wait to see it get reported. Two, they actually have so much money. They did rent out MSG and all the people that are not really like the closest to them will be there. And then there'll be a video screen being like, we're actually in a private— like we're in an island. Somewhere far away, having our real wedding. Sorry you couldn't make it, but we really didn't want the paparazzi to blow it up. So we told everyone that we're doing it in Madison Square Garden.
They're doing theirs in the Hulu Theater. Yeah, just downstairs. Yeah. And everyone else can watch upstairs.
That was my initial reaction.
It could be smoking out a rat because, like, it sounds like there was one source that talked to the press about this. If they do it and it's going to be tacky, you should just go full on tacky. You should sell tickets. Mm-hmm. Like, you should sell that place out. Have it be like 30,000 people there to watch you get married.
How much— I mean, the get-in for that might be more than Game 3.
How much do you think ticket prices would be if they, like, sold the entire stadium for their wedding?
Like $10,000, probably more.
Yeah.
Swifties.
You think there are more Taylor Swift fans or New York Knicks fans out there?
I was going to make a joke, but I don't want to get the Swifties upset at me.
I mean, it's probably Swifties.
Someone, someone could make the joke. Like, what?
I knew you were going to make the joke.
I'm not going to make the joke, but like, what is it? You're Someone could say like, well, it's— well, they got to save up for their cat's college education. Mm-hmm.
You could say that.
I could, but I didn't. I did not say that. And I wouldn't say that. That would be wrong of me to make that joke. Good thing you didn't make the joke.
You'd also just be like, they don't have jobs. They— is posting online on a fandom account, is that a job?
I'm not— we're not making any jokes. We're not making any of these jokes. I think this is a dummy wedding they're putting out. I think they're getting everyone off the scent.
It could be.
You're looking right now. Oh, the— oh, the get-in prices come down a little. You know what? $5,000.
Fuck it. Fuck it. Make $1 billion off this wedding. If you're them, sell tickets. Also put it on pay-per-view. Yeah. Live pay-per-view.
Yeah.
Why not go for it? Do the whole nine yards. They should never have to work a day in your life. You could retire off of your wedding. That's a pretty sweet gig.
I'm pretty sure they're good right now.
I know, but you could like, you could probably make a billion, double retire. You can make a billion dollars on your wedding.
They should just make it like a, like just televise it and pay-per-view. That's really what it is.
Pay-per-view it. Well, they're also smart because they're only having one wedding, unlike Max. So if Max tried to do this, it would be like, oh, just catch night 3.
Yeah.
If you want to get back with the Swifties, you could buy this, the courtside seat, and then like do tours.
That was going to be my who's back because I was going to— I was at I was going to throw out to the group. Is that creepy if I bought the seat that Taylor Swift sat in? It is. The auction is being auctioned off. I mean, it's a little creepy, but it also would be cool if we just had it in the office.
It would be cool.
Well, that would be cool.
That would be— that would be the least cool of all. We've gotten a lot of cool things.
You're telling me if there was a seat just sitting in the middle of the court and I was like, hey, that's the seat that Taylor Swift sat in to watch James Harden blow another playoff game. You wouldn't feel a little bit of goosebumps?
No, no, sir.
Okay. I guess you're not a Swiftie like me. Cats.
I did.
No one made that joke. No one made that joke. Okay.
So if there's one person out here that knows about putting cats through college. Yeah. Be me. My good friend.
Me.
Think about it.
Memes, what are you saying?
Memes wants to sniff the chair. No, I said I bet you somebody would sniff the chair.
Yeah.
Would you sniff the chair? I would not.
I would not.
Crazy family.
I'd buy the chair. I also wouldn't judge if anyone sniffed it, but I would buy it.
That would actually—
Memes is going to sniff this chair.
That would probably be— we would have to hire extra security if that chair was here. Yeah. Like that chair would need a full-time guard.
Or we just have like Dana—
what is this?
Auction.
If you smell the chair, you get shot.
I think, I think you just have Dana Beers sit in it first. Like, go ahead, sniff it, dude.
I would just fart in that chair.
Yeah, I think I'm guessing that this auction is going to get out of my price range. I think there's 7 days left. I saw it at $2,000. I think I'm going to be tapped out at— I don't know. I— you can't— I think $2,000 might be my limit for this chair because it's going to—
it's going to attract a lot of freaks. That's the thing. Yeah.
But it is a very funny thing that they're auctioning off this chair. I don't really know who benefits from this auction.
You find this auction.
It was on— we click on the ESPN article that was there. You just had it. Oh, okay. Now click on the other thing.
What other thing?
It says right there, there's hyperlinks. You know what a hyperlink is, dude?
Hyperlink, dude.
Come on, dude. Have you ever hyperlinked? Current bid, $6,000.
I'm out.
I'm out. I'm out.
Yeah, I'm out. That's going to get up to like $50,000.
I think I'm out. That is officially— I've recused myself from all Taylor Swift Share. All right. So Memes and Zach, are you guys going to watch the game together on Monday night?
I'm, I'm currently doing the same thing every single game day, which is being mad at everyone.
Yeah. Come in, get into a fight with Hank.
Being too nervous to talk.
Too nervous to talk.
Yeah. Anyone who says like anything to you, you just immediately talk about the Knicks and nothing else.
Yes, that too.
Possibly punch someone.
You have the same pregame meal?
Yeah, same pregame meal.
Which is—
I fucked up. I, I got cheese curds and some chicken, only the cheese curds. So now I have to eat cheese curds every single time.
Okay.
I wear my Knicks sweatshirt. I sit on the same spot on the couch. It was like 100 degrees in my apartment. I refused to put on the AC, so I was just soaking.
Why?
I just, I just couldn't. I couldn't turn it on.
That's part of the— that's part of the vibe. Part of the vibe. You can't have your air conditioning.
You also got to make sure that I alert security and be like, hey, just keep an eye on him this week.
Yeah, that too. Zach, what's your pregame meal been like?
Wait, do you forgive Zach yet?
You have to.
Yeah.
No, that was the most— I don't know.
Yeah, yeah.
All is forgiven, actually.
All right, tomorrow, tomorrow we're golfing. Tomorrow you guys, you guys have to ride together.
Sure.
Good.
Yeah, sure. Zach, Knicks lose the next 4 games. You forgive him? No. No.
Okay, Zach, what is the pregame meal look like for you?
I just been ripping chicken thighs and mashed potatoes.
Chicken Chicken thighs.
Yeah.
How are you cooking those?
A little fat. I just be getting them down the street, so I'm not cooking them. I'm just getting them sent to the house. But okay, a little fatty, but still good.
Okay.
And that was a pretty healthy meal.
Watch it from bed.
Hank, what's your pregame meal? You're on. You're— this has been the worst NBA play.
Yeah, I haven't—
I have—
I've not been doing like a superstitious—
I've been eating different meals on different days ever since you said this is your favorite, uh, 2 weeks.
Well, no, that was the first round of the playoffs.
I know, but it's like everything's gone bad since then. Yeah.
Yeah, it's been tough. It's been, it's been tough. At least the hockey's been entertaining to watch.
Yeah. So, uh, Hank, back to your team of the '20s nightmare scenario that you have.
I would say nightmare scenario that I have.
Yeah. I would say that if the Knicks win this finals, I think that they're already ahead of the Celtics because they beat you in the playoffs last year.
And also if they, I mean, if they end up, if they don't lose again. Yeah.
If they, if they don't lose again and then they probably, they probably have an argument. Celtics, I think, have more Conference Finals and more Finals appearances. So yeah, they lost one head-to-head to the Knicks, but I still think the Celtics have it. But that's, that's, that's the— there's a lot of, a lot of years left this decade.
So not a lot.
Yeah, it's 2026.
Yeah, there's enough years where it's like the— there's 3 years, whatever the standings are after the season don't mean a lot.
Yeah.
Okay.
But they've at least tied it up. You can't claim your '20s were better than the Knicks if they win this.
No, but the '20s aren't over, right? We'll be— we'll be neck and neck, right?
But this is like also just like juju for like all of New York City. This is the longest, you know, this is the last—
yeah, I know. I said on the show a long time how it was crazy how we lived there for so long and they never won shit. And it's like now they're actually—
who is— who— like, you know, obviously it was, you know, Red Sox and Cubs and then I think the Knicks, I think it's like other than the Knicks, the Bills, maybe Lions, Browns, Browns. But like even, yeah, all of Minnesota, all of Minnesota. OK, but like in terms of like great stories, there's not— there's only a handful left of like, you know, long-suffering fan bases. Finally. Yeah. Guardians, Guardians, Guardians, the Jets.
Yeah. So that's my fear is like, what if this just knocks the lid off for New York? And then they can't stop winning.
Would you take this if it knocks the lid off but for the wrong teams? Memes?
All, all except one.
The Rangers. Yeah.
Yeah.
What if the Yankees, Rangers, and Giants all go on nuclear?
Who cares? Yeah. Rangers, they suck.
Yeah. Okay. Anything else for the game? I'm excited for Game 3.
There should be a game on Sunday. I don't know why there wasn't a game on Sunday.
Should have been a game.
Figure it out. There should be the fact that there was no Stanley Cup and no NBA Finals game today is just— it's a disaster of the highest order.
Mm-hmm.
We need sports on weekends.
I'd agree.
Figure it out.
I'd agree. OK, before we're going to talk more NBA Finals with Windy, who's actually on site in New York now, so you can give us a little vibe check. Uh, before we talk some more sports, Reese's— nothing beats summer break when you were a kid. It was time off from school and sad school lunches, but you don't get summer break as a grown-up, and that's a huge bummer. But the good news is you can at least take a break from sad work lunches this summer with Reese's limited edition cups and the return of the Reese's Strawberry PB&J, plus the all-new Reese's Marshmallow Cup Both taste just like your childhood, so grab one before they're gone because they're fleeting, just like your youth. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Get yours at www.hershealand.com/reeses. We also just debuted our new Reese's Lounge. Incredible dream come true. I brought my kids on Friday because their, their school ended on Thursday. I— it was, it was like the best feeling I've ever had. They walked in just amazement. I was like, grab a bag. We're going to go shopping in the Reese's lounge. They finally— they finally stopped talking about Dude Perfect having a better office.
So thank you, Reese's. You did that for me. So go get a Reese's today. They've got the return of the Reese's Strawberry PB&J, plus the all-new Reese's Marshmallow Cup, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. We're also brought to you by our friends at DraftKings. The NBA Finals are in full swing and the intensity isn't letting up. Every game delivers high-stakes drama, clutch performances, An unforgettable moment you'll be talking about for years. And with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, your winnings get a boost every single day, all Finals long. The biggest stars turn it up when the title's on the line, and DraftKings turns it up with them with a profit boost available every single game of the Finals. Bet player props, bet live from the opening tip to the final possession. Every bucket, every dime, every clutch takeover matters, and only DraftKings Sportsbook keeps boosting you all the way through. All DraftKings customers can enjoy a profit boost every single day throughout the finals. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now. Use code TAKED to claim your profit boost. That's code TAKED to get a boost every day of the NBA Finals in partnership with DraftKings.
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Max bet and boost vary. Boost only applies to winnings and expires at the end of the last NBA game each day. See terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Okay, boys, the Stanley Cup Final. Unbelievable. So Game 3, we had the Mitch Marner hat trick in the second period alone. The Knights scored 6 goals in the second period. 2 of them were disallowed.
Correct calls. Yep.
Including one where I, I'm— I, I had the theory that Andersen, the goalie for the, uh, Hurricanes, got concussed because he got his head whipped around, and then he gave up 4 goals like that. So it was 4-0, looked like it was like, hey, Vegas is just— this is going to be the easiest win ever, they're probably going to win the Stanley Cup Final. And then in a matter of 39 seconds in the third period with 12, 13 minutes left, The Hurricanes scored 3 goals, 3 goals in 39 seconds, score a 4th to tie it up, to take it to overtime, go to double overtime, and then the Knights win the game in double overtime off a ricochet shot at like the Chipotle sign.
I think it was, uh, it was kind of an own goal, but they credited it to a guy from the, from the Knights for being the last to touch it. But that was, it was a soft goal, it's a weird goal, weird way to end it. The Knights needed that in this game, like you said Mitch Marner, I think that's the fastest hat trick in terms of time elapsed on the clock from goal number 1 to goal number 3 in Stanley Cup Finals history. Then it was a 4-goal comeback, which I believe is the first 4-goal comeback in Stanley Cup Final history. And then, like you said, the 39 seconds to score those 3 goals was the fastest scoring burst, I believe, in Stanley Cup Final history as well. Crazy game. And then it goes to overtime and nobody scores. Yep. And then everyone's butthole's super tight watching. It's just like crazy, crazy tense hockey. Again, a weird way to end it. But if the Knights don't get that luck, they're fucked. I think I— there's— I don't think that they can give up that comeback and then go on to win the Cup Final after.
I would have been very hard.
That would have made them crumble. And I think that if the team that wins that game, I believe it's about 80% of the time goes on to win. The Stanley Cup.
This, this series has just been— it's been on crack. I mean, we had like every, every single game has been just a big lead blown, comebacks, 2 overtime games. It's just been such fun, fun hockey. And Mitch Marner is the story right now. He is obviously the guy who's probably on pace to win the Conn Smythe if the finals ended today. He is— he's just changed the entire narrative. He needed to get change of scenery. He was— this, this is all to blame for, uh, for the good people of Toronto. But Mitch Marner, in 70 games, playoff games before this year, he had 13 goals. In 19 playoff games, uh, this year, he's got 10 goals. So a little bit of a difference. He's been on fire. He's been incredible. I asked the guys, I asked Biz and Whit and Yans, and I was like, not to troll, but like, is this literally just a, like, blame Toronto? And they said it's a little more nuanced, specifically that the Knights are just a way better team overall. So he's benefiting from playing on a better team. But yes, part of it is that there was a lot of pressure in Toronto and he's from Toronto and being away from that probably has loosened his game up.
Yeah, he's played— he's the best player on the ice. It was, it was close to being a disaster for the Golden Knights. Now everything is sunshine and rainbows because they were able to luck their way into a win. And it's crazy how quickly that can happen. Like, they would be so down on themselves if they didn't happen to squeak that one out. Now I think they're probably going to— I'm going to bet on them next game and I'm going to bet on them game afterwards. Love the Knights.
Love these Knights. Yeah. And we also had Mendoza. Did Mendoza get in on the crank off? Was he a cranker? I believe he was.
Yeah, he was cranking that shit.
He was cranking the fuck out of it. So I don't know. Number 1 pick, Heisman winner, national champion. I feel like— I feel like this is just— we said it before the series started. Whoever wins the crank off is probably going to win the series.
They got to break out Mark Davis. They have to let Mark crank.
Yeah, that Mark Davis, it's over.
If Mark Davis, you want to win right now, have him crank it.
What are you going to, what are you going to counter with? David Tepper?
Can't do it.
Can't do it.
Can't do it.
Oh, David Tepper would be funny because I just, I don't know, just something about him cranking.
You can't overcome Mark Davis crank.
No, we should get a crank.
We should.
Yeah, you're right.
We should get a crank.
Yeah, the pause in your sentence there.
Listen, any minor league team, any team that is trying to sell, upgrade their crank, let me know. I would love to buy the crank. Vegas, if you win it all, I would buy that crank in a second. Upgrade to a newer crank. I don't think you can sell the Stanley Cup crank. It's just basically fishing. That's just what they're doing. Reeling in a big shark.
Oh, these are— listen, Big Cat, these are cheap. Really? Yeah. Cranks are cheap.
OK, we can get—
we can get probably the best.
Can you buy one on Amazon?
Yeah.
A game used.
You can get a— you can get probably the best crank ever made for about— for less than $300.
Okay. But we do need a game-use crank. I think that would be— and it would be fun to do it like before NFL Sundays.
Yeah, we'd have to get Soldier Boy in here to do the first one.
Yeah, that would be fun.
We should bring in guests to crank before.
Yeah, we should. It pretty much will just be our Uber Eats delivery driver. She's like, hey, man, want to hit the crank?
Yeah. Who's going to be the celeb crank at the Gambling Cave this week?
Um, okay. Do you guys want to play the fun game I was talking about?
Yeah. Sweeping the nation.
Yeah. So I didn't realize this. We often talk about it with the NFL Combine, but the NHL Combine, they might have weirder questions than the NFL Combine. Did you guys see any of these go? They weren't viral, but there were some questions that were being thrown around. So apparently the Canadiens are like the king of these questions. And they also do weird thought experiments where they, they'll like hand you a puck and they'll say, shoot this puck, like throw this puck into the trash can. And they'll basically base it on like, how deep are you going to go? What's your confidence level at? But the question that was asked, this prospect Caleb Malhotra, who's going to be a top pick, said that the Canadiens or someone asked one of his buddies, if you are on a deserted island with no water for a day's walk and you had someone beside you with a water bottle, would you kill them to take the water? So a day to get more water, or would you kill that person?
This to me sounds like when Dwight Schrute tried to establish a pee corner in the elevator after like 10 seconds being in there. You just walk. You can just walk and not, not murder somebody.
Okay. The other one to the Canadians, I think this is iterate. So they've done this a couple of times. The other one they asked a couple of years ago. If you're stranded on a deserted island with someone and only a bottle of water and a baseball bat and you can't share the water and the other person takes the water first, what do you do with the bat?
So you're essentially saying you're going to die?
Yeah.
If it's desert island.
Mm-hmm.
I don't— okay, here's what you do. You have to play the hand game on the bat and then whoever wins gets the water.
Okay. You go hand over hand or you say, hey, let's play a game of baseball. Throw me that water bottle. I'll try to hit it. And then you grab it.
Why can't you share the water?
I don't know. You can't.
The thing is, if it's a desert island, one bottle of water, you're both going to die. Just one person is going to survive like 2 days longer.
Why can't you share the water? I don't like—
you can't share the water, Max. You can't share the water. You're going to kill someone.
In what world would you not be able to share the water?
And when you're getting interviewed by the Montreal Canadiens for the NHL Combine, then you can't. You want another one? How do you describe the color blue?
It's blue.
That's a good one. These are so stupid.
Sky.
Sky. Ocean. That's good. Apparently they also hand someone a brick and they say, list all the things you can do with it in the next 30 seconds.
A brick. Brick. Okay. Go, Hank.
Bicep curls.
Okay.
Throw it through a car window.
Yep.
Throw it through a house window.
Why don't you do these things?
You asked what he could do.
Yeah, he can do that. I know.
It's follow-up question.
Why? Stand on it and dunk.
Yep.
Kick it.
You can throw it at a person.
Mm-hmm. Build a house.
Nope, not with one brick.
We could start to build a house.
You could start to build a lot of—
start the process of building a house.
Um, what else could you do with a brick?
A brick of doorstop. My question would be doorstop.
Good one. Yep.
A brick of paperweight.
Yeah, paperweight.
Put that brick in your face.
Yeah, to put it—
put in the streets.
Yeah, cut it.
Mm-hmm. Powder. Yep. Yep. Zach, what would you do with the brick?
Well, yeah, you could make two bricks and then you could also take that brick and then you try to— you ask the guy next to you how he would sell this brick.
Mm-hmm.
Okay. Oh, I got another one. You can take it to the NHL Combine and ask prospects what they would do with it. Yeah, that would fuck them up mentally. They'd be like, damn, or got us.
You know what? If I were sitting in that meeting, I'd be like, I could smash it over your face. You stop asking me all these dumb questions. Knock you out through a motherfucker. Practice my slap shot with a brick. Yeah. Okay.
Little weight. Little weight.
Yeah. Or your golf swing.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Here's another one. Hockey. These are mostly from the Canadiens, I think. It's World War II and you're the captain of a boat.
Yeah.
And you have to bomb an enemy boat, but your teammates are swimming in the ocean in between you and the enemy boat.
Yeah. What's the question?
What do you do?
Memes keep saying kill Max for all of these hypotheticals.
Put the bomb in there.
The past 3, he's just like a torpedo bomb or whatever, one of those.
Wait, wait, wait, we're talking about a torpedo? I don't know about a bomber.
I don't know. I'm just reading off of what they said.
Are we talking about an aircraft carrier?
I shouldn't ask this question because I should have known you guys were going to get bombed.
A lot of questions, details on the bombs, a lot of questions I would need to know first.
All right, how about this one?
Would you rather avoid the teammates? Be accurate. Yeah. Accuracy is one of my favorite things.
Hit your spot.
Yeah. Would you rather have a 4-year career in the NHL and win a Cup? Yes. Or a 10-year career in the NHL with no Cup?
Okay.
10-year.
The honest answer is 10-year easily. Yeah. But the answer I would give in this interview is 4 years.
Apparently the team said—
I think the answer is 10 years.
Yes. Apparently the answer was 10 years because they wanted to see how much you loved the game.
Yeah. I would never want to—
I never want to stop playing.
The thing about me is I love winning.
But you can't control your teammates. You can't control where you end up.
That's how you're—
if you, if you play for the Canadiens, you're never going to win.
So that sounds like loser talk to me.
You'd rather play for 10 years.
Oh, by the way, the brick was actually from the Islanders.
That's right.
Do you like that now?
I love it.
All right. Last one of this very fun game of— I had no idea that this was— we'll have to ask the boys when they come back on. But like, I thought that the NFL was the king of weird combine questions.
Everyone's always trying to get a stupid edge, right?
But here, here's the last one. The last one is, if you were at a restaurant and you ordered a BLT with cheese and the sandwich came without any cheese on it, what would you do?
Absolutely nothing.
I'm eating the BLT.
Same.
I look at it like absolutely nothing.
Accidental diet. OK, they did me a favor by leaving the cheese off.
I had it.
I had just a BLTC.
Yeah, I had this moment this morning. I took my kids to the diner and they like their bacon crispy. And I said, I asked the waitress to make it very crispy. And they came back and it was borderline burnt. And I just was like, kids, you're eating this bacon. You're not going to complain. But I said the word very. So that was on me, I think. Yeah, I think saying very changes everything.
Yeah, we were just talking about— we're not going to say who, but one member of part of my take is very, very picky about some of their orders that they put in. Shane, I would say like 75% of the time his order arrives and there's something off about it compared to what he ordered. And I don't think he ever eats it. He just sits there and like looks at it sadly. It's like if you have— if you're going to be a picky eater, you have to learn to accept defeat because most of the time they're going to fuck something up. And you know what a real man does when their order is a little bit fucked up? They sit there and they take it in silence and they eat.
Yeah.
My order could be all the way fucked up and I sit down, take it and eat like it's— it is what it is.
Yeah.
When you order something, it's in God's hands. Yeah. You're not in control of what— of what you're actually getting.
Yeah. You've thrown yourself into a very dangerous game.
If you want something exactly particular of how you want it, you make it yourself.
Yep. Yeah. I— yeah, I can't remember the last time I've ever sent something back.
Never. I can tell you, never.
Yeah, I know. Like, there's not— there's not a world I— maybe I've like—
if you get it medium rare, not medium rare plus.
Yeah, if you get a steak, but it has to be like so off, you know what I mean? And it can't be off. Yeah.
Overcooked.
It has to be so undercooked that you can just say, hey, can you just put this back on there for like a minute?
So we went to the Outback, I believe was in Baton Rouge. When Pup Punk was playing a show there, I had the rarest steak ever served to the point where it was like kind of gray on the outside and then just red the entire way through. And I just— I took one bite and I was just like, I'm just going to— I'm just going to take it. I'm not going to eat my steak.
I had— I had one in West Virginia for Rough and Rowdy that was like, I cut into it. I was like, this is actually disgusting. Ate the whole fucking thing. And it was disgusting. But that's— men don't complain.
That's—
they don't complain about that.
That's what a man does.
We don't complain about that. Never.
You complain about it to the people at your table. And then the waiter comes over and he's like, hey, how was everything?
Oh, delicious. Oh, incredible.
What about—
oh yeah, when your plate's like half eaten and they're like, oh, you didn't like that? Like, no, no, I loved it. I'm just saving for later. Or you move stuff. That's what I do if I hate something. If it's like comes out, it's not what I wanted. I'll move shit around strategically, look like I eat it.
Yeah.
What about returning clothes?
No, no, never. No, never.
No, no.
That was just a mistake. Well, I assume you're talking about buying online. Yeah. Yeah. That's just— that's just part of the game. There's just a part of the game where you're like, hey, you know what? Maybe I shouldn't buy these things that are— I don't know the fit of them because Instagram swipe-up ad was targeted towards me.
I bought a pair of pants a couple of weeks ago that just like same size I always get. Wasn't even close.
It was—
I could barely even like get it around my waist.
Yeah.
Sometimes it's Yeah, sizes just aren't the same.
Yes, I bought a sweatshirt that was just a tummy shirt. Yeah, it was XL.
It was—
yeah, exactly. Zach and I always say fake 2X. It's a fake 2X.
Yeah, there are a lot of crop tops now.
Way too many crop tops.
I don't know what's happened, but we got to stop that.
Yeah. My mom, my mom, for my birthday, like 3 years ago, got me a shirt from L.L.Bean. It arrived. It was, I believe, a triple XL. I don't know how she clicked on that to order that for me. And I did send it back and I sent it back to get a large size. Then I got a bill from LL Bean saying I owed them. I believe it was like $1.40. Just decide not— I'm not going to pay that. And so like a year later, they were still hounding me down, being like, sir, we need the $1.40 for return postage. I finally called them up and I fought City Hall. I won.
Hell yeah.
They finally waived it. They said, all right, we can see we're not getting the $1.40 from you. Good job. Tip of the cap, sir.
Well played. Hell yeah.
Shane has entered the chat.
Oh, what do you say?
He said they got— they got me the completely wrong order.
Oh, okay.
So it was a burger.
It is what it is.
Yeah, it was a soft pretzel and a burger. I'd eat that. I'd eat that.
So that's actually— you've been blessed, dude. Yeah, you've been blessed with a burger.
I got sent a box of flour the other day.
And what? And you ate it like a man. Like, I guess it was insane.
What do you mean?
I ordered—
they were here.
They ordered— I won't say the place because I I like posted and they reached out and they were like, I'll give you credit. I still wasn't like, I'm not even going to— I'm not going to— I don't even need a reorder. It was like comically— I ordered just like a lunch and they fucked up the orders and they sent me— I guess this place sells flour in bulk. They just sent me like a pound of flour.
That's crazy. Yeah.
Didn't complain.
Should have made bread. Yeah. Yeah. Should have done something about that. Okay. Any other stories before we do? Who's back? We did. Is Brandon Ayuk wearing commander's gear?
Yeah, I keep going back and forth between like, it's good to have one kind of crazy wide receiver on your team. And also, like, I think he just might be actually crazy. Yeah. So we'll see. There is a conspiracy theory out there that the Niners canceled their OTAs so that he wouldn't show up so they could continue to recoup money and not have to pay him. Got it. It's kind of like the, the episode of Seinfeld where Costanza keeps having to, like, break into the office.
Mm-hmm.
Because they're trying to get him to quit. Yeah, I think that there's some people that are saying that that's what he's doing.
But he's—
yeah, he's taking pictures with like Commanders hats on. He's very good friends with Jayden Daniels still. So I don't know. I don't know. There's like every red flag possible going up right now. Yeah, but he might still really be really good. And what do you say? It's like, I'm going to put my belt to their ass or they're running from the belt. They're running. He said the 49ers are running from the belt right now. Okay.
Yeah. So I was very confused.
Mm-hmm. Huh. Any more developments with Bears Stadium?
Yeah, we're doing Indiana as of right now, but still maybe not. It's such a fucking mess. Yeah, it's— it was so perfect on Friday. It came out that the Bears board of directors voted to go forward with the Indiana site, and then almost instantly after that, there was people commenting being like, but there's still a chance. Arlington Heights because they could call a special meeting. I— it's just so fucking stupid, man. And it's going to be— it will suck that they— like, I think in 20 years, we'll— if they're in Indiana, will anyone be like, oh man, this is crazy? No. But it will suck in the moment. Like, it's going to suck that they're doing this.
And then, yeah, Indiana will have two NFL teams. Yep. New York will have one NFL team. Texas will have 2 NFL teams. California will have 2 NFL stadiums. Kind of crazy that Indiana would be in that shortlist that has 2. And then when the Commanders did this and they moved to Maryland, they renamed the city for them. Yeah. Are they going to rename the city?
I don't think so.
They should. That should be part of the demand. It's like, call— you're, you're now entering the bear den.
I will say that there's been some like slander towards Northwest Indiana residents, which I think is unfair because first of all, they didn't ask for this. And like But I mean, they're— they live like 30 minutes from Chicago. They're rooting for the Bears. And I would like to say there's some— been some very nice people. Like, for instance, Zach, you should actually go maybe do a research project. There's a nice strip club called The Landing Strip that has already welcomed Bears fans.
Oh, that's nice.
Yeah, I was big of them.
Yeah, that's unity.
Yeah. Check out Dreamgirls nearby too.
I could put those in the shortlist.
And I think Knockouts.
The thing is, just a little aggressive. The thing is, is it also was crazy because we had the World Cup friendly at Soldier Field on Saturday, and Soldier Field looked incredible. And again, I, I think there's blame— the blame pie for this is so vast because it all starts— I've seen a lot of people been like, why do the Bears even need to move a stadium? Well, one, they don't own it. They want to own a stadium. And two, it's the NFL that's pressuring them. The NFL wants the Bears to have their own stadium so that all the, the prices go up for everyone's franchise. That's where the pressure's starting from.
Kevin Warren was brought in to do this job, correct? Like, this is what Kevin Warren wants to maximize maximize the value of the Bears for the Bears ownership group. That is his only job.
And in terms of—
his job is not to make sure you have fun at games.
Correct.
His job is not to make sure that free agents will want to sign with the Bears. His job is to do one thing, that's to get the most money in the pockets of his bosses. And if he does, uh, if he gets a sweetheart package from Indiana, then he's going to take that. Because at the end of the day, it's about the, the, the plus minus that he can bring to the ownership group based on, uh, the, the new stadium and the retail around it compared to whatever Arlington Heights is offering. And if it's not close, they're gonna go to Indiana, right?
I, I still, I still think they're gonna end up with their own. It still doesn't make sense. They bought a fucking parcel of land that is enormous for $200 million. That, that's what I was saying also on Friday. They have to— if, if the Bears go to Indiana, they have to at least rebuild. They should make them rebuild the horse racing track, Arlington Park, which was great because that's bullshit that we lost that and then nothing is being used. That land.
What would happen to Soldier Field when the Bears leave? I don't know. I think—
I don't know. The Fire are getting a new stadium. I think the White Sox are getting a new stadium. I don't know. Probably nothing.
Yeah.
Like, it would probably just sit there for concerts and stuff.
It is weird that's going to Indiana.
I know it's fucking stupid. The whole thing is stupid. Just stay. Part of me thinks that they might just, they might just, this is just going to be like they're going to put their hands up and be like, you know what, we'll try again. And when our lease is up at Soldier Field in like, I think it's 6 years, 7 years, like we'll just run this out.
I do. I love the idea though of Indiana just going all in on sports. We're going to be the sports state.
Yeah.
Any, any team that wants to build, we will have you.
Should go after the Bengals.
Go after the Bengals. Yeah, go after the Bengals and they'll be like the Eastern Indiana Bengals. You could go after, let's see, the Chiefs. I don't know, is the ink dried on—
Chiefs are moving states.
Yeah.
Why not come in at the last minute, Indiana? Yeah. The Titans can maybe get the Grizzlies to build their new stadium.
They should. You're right.
They should just— Southern Indiana.
You're right. They should rename They should wait until the Bears start building and then we should just— Illinois should just annex Indiana.
Do they have— I, you know what, I was actually thinking about this the other day in terms of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Does Wisconsin and Michigan— like, does, does the state of Michigan have active duty National Guard members on that border?
Stop.
Because what's to stop Wisconsin from just taking it? Like just sending troops in overnight, like they, they should think about doing that. Yeah. If Detroit, if Michigan is not going to defend the Upper Peninsula.
Yeah.
Go take it.
Go take it. Go take it. Right, Hank?
Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I'm always in favor of good little land grab.
Yeah. Back and forth. Just take Hammond.
Yeah.
Real quick. OK. Oh, did anything happen in golf?
Mega Corp back. Who? JT Poston.
He's a Mega Corp. Yeah. Who's back? The buddy. I love that.
Love that.
Yeah.
Mega Corp. Good for him.
Yeah.
I know. Nelly Korda, US Open champ.
Okay. Shout out Nelly. I should also mention there's tragic passing of Stacy King today. I— there's— so for you who don't know, he's the color commentary guy for the Bulls. He's been, he's been doing it for 20-ish years. I think 20 years. He's one of those guys, every city has this, where you have someone on the hometown broadcast where they are, uh, they make you want to watch the game even if the product is bad. And that was Stacey King. He was the guy who was, he knew ball, but he also made it entertaining. You know, the, the too big, too strong, too fast, too good Derrick Rose, the heart, hustle, and muscle Joe Kim Noah. Even recently, Lil Boosie Vert for Modus. Like, he had the nicknames. He had— it's like the Dickie V's and the Chris Berman, how we talk about these guys. They make sports more fun and they welcome people in. And that was Stacey King. He also was just a great guy. He would, he would stay at the games and stand there for like 45 minutes to an hour to take pictures with fans after every single game, like literally every game.
He'd be like, if you want to take a picture with me, come, come down courtside after the game. I'll be here and I'll make sure I take care of the fans. I— yeah, it's weird whenever like a celebrity passes away, you, you don't really feel anything. But this one was like a sucker punch. It was like he was tweeting yesterday about the NBA Finals. I don't know what happened, but I feel awful for his family. I feel awful for everyone who worked with him. And it will be very weird to have Bulls broadcast without Stacey King involved. Because he was that type of guy. And, uh, so yeah, really, really sad. Um, uh, okay, should we do Who's Back of the Week? Okay, Who's Back of the Week is brought to you by Twisted Tea. Summer's here and Twisted Tea is coming in clutch to turn our day drinking up a notch. Their new Summer Party Pack has a brand new Twisted Lemonade made with real lemons and 5% alcohol. It's got that refri— uh, refreshing taste with a little kick. No carbonation, goes down smooth. Whether it's hitting the course for a round, pre-gaming a ballgame, or inviting the guys over some backyard grilling, the new Twisted Tea Summer Party Pack is perfect to keep the good times rolling.
Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Twisted Tea. We love Twisted Tea. It's the summer Twisted Tea. Go get it today. Twisted Lemonade made with real lemons, 5% alcohol. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. All right. Who's back of the week? Henry.
I had Megacorp. Nelly Corda, Love at MSG, which we already talked about.
Did you see the fan who's saying Jalen Brunson's name 100,000 times on stream? Yeah, that's crazy.
That's insane.
Mm-hmm.
That's all.
How long has he been going?
I don't know, but that's—
he's still going right now.
Yeah, I think so.
What is it just like after he gets to 100,000? He's going to be like, all right, thanks for tuning in.
Yeah, pretty much.
That rocks. Good. Monaco.
Monaco. Monaco's going viral.
Monaco.
Monaco's back.
Monaco's going—
F1 was in Monaco.
Yep. The worst race they have by far.
But the city itself is going viral. People are talking about how rich it is. And, you know, it's basically like a Florida, Nashville on steroids for rich people. Like, athletes want to go to Florida or Nashville Got it.
Because of that, it's like an entire country.
Monaco just has no taxes. Like, I might be— come, I, I probably need to, you know, work a little bit longer, but I'll have an NFL game there soon enough. I would— Monaco sounds awesome.
Monaco is so small.
How, how small?
It's pretty small. It's like the size of a small city.
Tiny. The whole Monaco is just one tiny little city.
And they— so it's basically just like the— it's the rich people just figure out a place to just—
to hunt poor people. Yeah. They show up and it's like the most dangerous game. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's one of those places that you go and the size of the yachts that are parked in the harbor, you think that they're huge. And then you see that actually some of those yachts are just like the small yacht that then goes out and travels to the bigger yacht. It's like the emotional support yacht that a billionaire has. And then that's the one that you bring ashore so you can then drive your car off that yacht.
Yeah, everyone was in Monaco. A lot of parties, a lot of, a lot of events. I don't think anyone— I mean, we got into F1 a little bit on this, on this podcast, but Monaco is a bad race.
Bad.
Whoever's— whoever's—
whoever's races are like not interesting to watch. Like no one that's in Monaco watch the race.
No, it's a party.
Yeah.
Yeah. In bad sports town.
Monaco's definitely a bad sports town. Yeah. 100%.
Great party town, though.
But, Hank, you— you— what about growing the game? F1? Yeah.
I mean, F1, that's the— that's their mecca.
Mm-hmm.
That's— I like growing the game when they do more US events.
Yeah. Okay.
Like F1 doing US events is F1 fans' versions of NFL going to Europe.
Mm-hmm.
They're like, this is bullshit, right?
But you like it. Because it's growing the game in the States.
I get it. I grew the game so hard that it worked on you, that you're a lifelong fan. No, no. So you're proving that what we've been complaining about, we're actually right.
Can you name two drivers?
Lewis Hamilton. Mm-hmm.
George—
you're about to say St-Pierre, but no, no, no, no.
The twin Thomases.
Oh, Max Verstappen.
Yeah, there we go.
There you go.
Charles Leclerc.
Yeah. Yeah, that was the album.
Yeah. Alex Albon.
What the fuck is George?
George Russell. Mm-hmm. Georgie Boy. So we call him. Yeah, the Monaco race makes no sense.
There's no overtaking.
They just— whoever gets the fastest qualifying time, you've won the race as long as you don't crash.
I did like the Indy 500, though. The Indy 500 rocked.
Yeah.
Okay, good. Who's back?
Nice. Who's back? My Who's Back of the Week is soccer. Yeah. World Cup this week.
Yeah, I was going to do that, but then I wrote it down. I was like, I can't even pretend to care.
Yeah, that's okay. You don't have to pretend to care. He's got it. But you might, you might come down with World Cup fever. The first half was awesome against Germany. It was one of those goals where it's like you watch that goal and you're like, oh, fuck, yeah, it got me hard. I got an erection. When he hit that volley. It was the coolest goal, maybe the best goal since 2014 in the World Cup.
Yeah. Wait, but this isn't the World Cup. No, it's not.
Right. But it's a great— it's the best US men's national team goal.
Yeah. Also, the lot of pitch talk.
A lot of pitch talk. All right.
Well, that was going to be my comeback, but this is related to Harry Kane's complaint. Yeah. All Europe, everyone in Europe is complaining. They don't like the heat. They don't like that. Like, shut the fuck up.
It's mandatory hydration. You're here. Listen, I get England, Scotland. You guys got sent down to Florida. I understand that that's probably not a good combination for your fair skin.
Deal with it.
Yeah, deal with it. Okay. Florida's not that bad.
You just—
this time of year, Florida's not great.
No, definitely not.
But I also don't care. They, they complain. This is— this happens in Europe every single year because they don't have air conditioning. There's a day where it's like 80 degrees and they're like, Every old person died. You can't handle it.
What is the opening ceremony?
I believe it's Thursday is the first game and then U.S. plays on Friday night against Paraguay. And wow, we got a secret little U.S. men's national team group chat at Barstool Sports for the people. No, why not? For the people who care about the team, they're only involved.
I want the U.S. to do well. This would be awesome if the U.S. did well and I want us to win.
They They let me know about some news that happened over the weekend in Paraguay. So in their friendly, their best player— I hate, I hate that this happened, but he got injured.
Oh no.
So he's probably not going to play against the United States. And it sucks because you want to beat teams when at their best. Listen, and this guy's hurt and I'm just— I'm so mad about it. I wish he was playing.
I want to win this thing bad. Yeah, because if you let us win soccer, it's over.
You can't tell us it's over for the world.
Don't let us win this fucking tournament. Or any World Cup for that matter.
Can't tell us shit if we win.
We're not the cockiest motherfuckers ever.
We won't win, but we should. I'm excited now. I've seen enough in that first half against Germany. We look good and Germany is like, you know, top 5 team in the world.
So I'm definitely excited. I mean, the World Cup rocks. We lost.
Yeah, we lost. Yeah, we lost. But in the first half is when it was a friendly. Hank is a friendly. It was a sendoff match.
And the goal, it's really the goal.
The goal was awesome.
The goal is a Jedi.
Jedi is But if you can't get excited for the World Cup, you got to dump in your pants. Yeah.
Yeah. Call me Dumpy McGee.
Okay, I will. I'll go. You got to dump in your pants.
Like, I, I get upset about U.S. soccer not being told every year that this is the year. U.S. soccer aside, the World Cup is an awesome, awesome event. I'm going to watch as much World Cup as I possibly can.
We're not— we're not— I'm not telling you that the U.S. is going to win the World Cup because we're not. But we should compete in our group to win. We should get out and then we should win. If we win to get all— here's all I want. I want there to be two mornings where I wake up feeling nervous and excited that it's all on the line for U.S. soccer. So two elimination games. That's all I want. If I wake up in those mornings and the only thing I'm worried about is what's going to happen in the U.S. soccer game that day, I will consider that a win for this World Cup. We should play in two elimination games.
My other—
plus 140 to win Group D. Okay.
We should win that group.
The Socceroos from Australia.
The— my other part of the World Cup weekend because you get all these like teams coming, coming stateside and all this, you know, it's— we're going to get ramped up. What do you guys think that Messi is going to do with the signed Marcel Reid jersey he got?
He's probably pumped for that. You can—
me, it's got to be the largest discrepancy in terms of talent, notoriety, accomplishments, signed jersey to another guy.
Yeah, I like—
I know, no offense, Marcel Reid. He, he has, he did have some electric games last year, but you're talking about the GOAT in one sport in Marcelo Reid.
Yeah. So getting to see the different teams staying in the United States and the places that they're at and just imagining the scenarios that like the Argentinian national team is finding themselves in, in the Kansas City area.
Yeah.
It's very funny to me. Or like Brazil is just staying out in New Jersey.
Yeah. If you're Texas A&M, I think you have to give Messi the dog. You have to give him revelry. That would be a comparable thing. Like, here's a dog, not here's a jersey.
That would be nice.
Yeah, very weird. But yeah, the Europeans complaining. Get the fuck out of here.
Yeah. Harry Kane's upset because he says too hot in Florida. He said he said the pitch wasn't in great condition.
Wasn't that not even a World Cup site?
It was him and a friendly site.
Yeah.
And New Zealand, they got together afterwards and they were like, Yeah, we want to stand as one and complain about the pitch together and just, just whine.
So shut up, dude.
Yeah, shut up.
It's not even a fucking— it's not even a site where you're going to play a real game.
Yeah.
Harry Kane, listen, friendly.
How much of the pitch do you need to see, Harry? You only stay inside the 6-yard line.
The pitch talk is just cope. That's all they're doing.
Oh, yeah.
They're going after your team.
That's all it is. They're just scared.
Yeah.
We're just soft. They're grown men and we're talking about heat.
What are we doing?
Yeah. All right. My other who's back was Caitlin Clark, because now people are saying she's washed.
There's been so much Caitlin Clark discourse this year. So much. It's crazy. I can't even keep up with it anymore. Like, shit, is she a problem? Is she coach killer?
They're saying that her new coach is not playing to her strengths. And I think she's been in a shooting slump, but that happens. Mm-hmm. But yeah, it's nuts. Also, people being like, oh, you know, they're not talking about it the same way. I mean, the NBA Finals are still going on, I would imagine. And we have the World Cup, like, WNBA does shine when other sports aren't happening.
Where is the Fever? Are they in the playoffs?
Fever are— oh, I didn't know.
Wait, are they the 8th seed right now? The playoffs started today.
The Portland Fire? When did—
is that a team?
Name 5 WNBA teams.
OK, Portland Fire, Las Vegas Aces, Los Angeles Sparks, Washington Mystics, the Lynx, the Suns, the Chicago Sky.
I just did something so stupid.
Just so everyone knows. I just did something. So when Hank said name 5 teams, Max covered up our computer screen back here so that we couldn't see.
Yeah, stupid, stupid.
Portland Fire, I didn't know existed, but good for them. Was that new? That's got to be new, right? Dallas Wings, Atlanta Dream. We go on and on. New York Liberty, the Golden State Valkyries, Toronto Tempo. Is that a new one?
They sound new.
They look new.
So Dallas Wings, that's the discourse. I told you that Paige Buckets would be better than Caitlin Clark when she got drafted. I think there's a lot of stuff that Caitlin Clark has had to deal with that I think some of it's outside of her control. But now, like, you're starting to see the edits of Caitlin Clark, like, yelling at coaches.
It's—
yeah, it's me becoming a problem.
It's getting me out there.
Yep.
She's getting the other side of the internet right now. It's getting mean.
It's getting mean. Yeah. So good for— well, actually, no, not good for anyone. I don't even know.
Yeah. No, I don't think it's healthy for anybody to think about this.
No. Oh, also, who's back? Golden Tempo won the Belmont.
Yep.
Really sucks. Really sucks that we didn't get a chance at a Triple Crown. Good horse. Good horse. Mike Francesca approves.
Should we—
yeah. Should we be blaming the horse, though, for not competing for the Triple Crown.
Yes.
Off like load management. Yes. Come to horse racing now and it's sad.
Adam Silver needs to get involved. Yeah. You got to run at least— you got to run at least 75% of the 3-horse Triple Crown.
Yeah. To be eligible for Horse of the Year. Yeah. Now, how did— how did this horse do in terms of expected horse lengths versus actual horse lengths?
Very, very nicely.
OK, so did actually win, too.
Yeah. OK. Zach, finish this off, then we'll get to Brian Windhorst.
My Who's Back of the Week this week, gentlemen, is going to be Xbox because we had the 2026 Xbox Showcase today. Anybody see any clips?
No.
Pretty exciting stuff. We got— look, we got new Spyro, we got new Gears of War, we got new— obviously the Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4, and then also maybe we get a new Halo.
Like, the—
what a launch event today. A lot of games on the horizon, super excited to play them. Playing by yourself, playing with your friends, call a friend. Get him in your party. It's that time, boys.
Are they— aren't they done making— are they done making PS5s?
No, no, there's a lot of shortages right now because all these data farms are taking all the RAM.
Ah, okay.
Now what about the data centers are ruining fun?
What about the new Call of Duty? Where is that located? Like, where are the maps?
A lot of it's gonna be in Korea.
Oh, okay. Now what are people saying about that? Are they excited?
Oh yeah, I see a lot of good talking points online. It's a lot more colorful, not as gray. People pretty pumped. We're also getting, uh, they're doing a 25th anniversary launch console. We're getting back to the translucent plastics. Do you guys remember any of that from the early consoles with like the different colors you could see through, see all the hardware on the inside? Super exciting.
N64s, Apple computers used to have that too.
Yeah, they're gonna— so they're bringing it, they're bringing it back. Okay, which is just like, that's eye porn.
They should think about doing Call of Duty but you're on the border of the Michigan Upper Peninsula and you're trying to take it over as Wisconsin.
I love that.
I would play that. I love that. Calling a drone strike on Mackinac Island.
That fucking rock.
I love that drone strike. Terrifying, but effective battle use, I guess.
Yeah. Okay, good. Who's back, boys? Let's get to Brian Winhorse.
We'll get to Brian Winhorse in a second. He's brought to you by our great friends over at BetterHelp. For some, summer is their favorite season. Travel picks up. Kids are out of school. Adventure is the focus. But for others, juggling it all can be tough, can lead to overwhelm and counting down the minutes until the kids are back in school. And many worry they're wasting the days of the sunshine. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. You have to take care of yourself during the summer. I like to wake up a little bit early in the summer, stay out a little bit later, get as much sun as possible. With BetterHelp, it works. It's got an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. Quality therapists— where BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct, and they're fully licensed in the United States. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals, and you don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support and therapy.
Sign up, get 10% off at betterhelp.com/pmt. That's betterhelp.com/pmt. And Brian Windhorst is also brought to you by Chevy. Our AWLs know that Chevy Silverado is the official truck of Part of My Take. That's because the Silverado is the truck with grit. It shows up every time. It's built to haul, built to tow, built to take a beating, but it's smart where it counts. It's got modern tech that makes life easier. Big screens, camera views that'll help with towing and with parking. And it's got a cabin that feels right whether you're road tripping, heading to practice, if you're loading up for the weekend. And during the season, it's the MVP of the tailgate. After the season, it turns into your training camp truck, hauling gear, tackling home projects, doing the work that never stops. The grind doesn't take breaks. Neither does Silverado. Check out the current offers. Build your Silverado at chevy.com. And now here's Brian Windhorst.
Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very, very special special guest. It is our guy Brian Windhorst. You can see him on ESPN. You can listen to the Hoop Collective. He's got a live show coming up on Tuesday night, Gotham Comedy Club in New York City. There's still a couple tickets left. Go buy it and see the Hoop Collective live. Windy, you're the absolute best. But I have one hard question for you.
You ready for it? Okay. Wow. God, you were just buttering me up. I was.
All right, go ahead. All right.
Go ahead.
You're the one who found Victor Wembanyama.
Yes. Okay, he had literally— no one had heard of him.
I do love when, when you're— when your co-hosts on Hoop Collective bust your balls about that. But you know Wemby very well, uh, you— or at least you covered him. Um, are the Spurs screwed? Is Wemby— is Wemby screwed? Because this has been a bad first 2 games in the NBA Finals for him.
Yeah, I mean, his stats are okay, and he, you know, he, um You know, he had a pretty good second half in, uh, in Game 2, and you know, most of it was he started making jumpers. Um, but he doesn't have the same energy level, I don't think, as he had in the Conference Finals. And look, here's what I'm going to say. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna— before you accuse me of hedging, I'm going to announce that I'm hedging.
Okay?
Okay.
Does that—
I don't know if that does anything for you, but I'm going to announce this as a hedge. The Knicks look very— I was with the Knicks at their practice today in their media session. I watched some of their practice. They look very focused. There is no— you definitely can tell. I don't know if it's Brunson who set the tone or if it's the all the Villanova guys, but you can tell whoever's in their face about, you know, job's not done, etc., it's getting through because I don't pick up a hint of drop off at all. I'm seeing the— I'm seeing a very, very focused team. Okay, now here's the other side of the fence. I don't think this series is over, and I'm seeing a lot of my colleagues and, and, and, you know, saying that this series isn't going back to San Antonio.
We would never say something like that on this show.
And I just don't think it's over. Like, and like, you know, if the Knicks play another great game on Monday night and they go 3-0, obviously no one's coming back from that.
Um, but I think this The Spurs are still alive.
It is a 2-game— both games the Spurs had the lead with less than 2 minutes to go and they lost them. And you know, I have, I have seen playoff series in this situation where the team goes back home and the home team's like, you know, we've, we've broken you and we're gonna win by 30 now. Um, but I have seen the opposite. And so all I will say is I see no signs of the Knicks being overconfident, but I am not ready declare that this is, uh, is that this is put to bed yet. So that's, that's, that's my viewpoint. Sorry if it's not more hot takey.
How much of the, uh, of the blame would you assign to Mitch Johnson for the first two losses?
Yeah, um, he, he's touching buttons that aren't really working, and, um, he's, he's also playing a key player who's playing through an injury. De'Aaron Fox playing through an injury. And, um, he's your franchise point guard. He's making a max contract. And, you know, because I know there's a lot of like, well, you know, you got to play Dylan Harper more. They used a 3-guard rotation throughout the year. They won 62 games and got to the Finals. So it's very hard to tell a young coach, sit, sit your point guard down, sit him down And then he played great in Game 2. Um, but he's, he's, he's doing some rotations and touching some buttons that, that aren't, that aren't really working. Whereas Mike Brown, everybody he puts on the court was like playing awesome. Like Landry Shamet's having the best 2 weeks of his career right now. This guy's a minimum player.
Yeah, he's been incredible. Do you— was there any— so after Game 2 And, and, and the situation where Wemby throws it off Steph Castle's back. I, I said in the moment, and we just taped some of our show, but that was a moment to me that Mitch Johnson should have called the timeout before that even happened. And I know, like, you want a transition bucket, you can maybe get one easy, but it's like, hey, the worst that happens, you go to overtime, you call timeout, you get your best play, you hunt your best matchup, you're a young team, get everyone settled. Like, hey guys, this is a moment. We got to just, you know, find our best. But instead you see what happens, and it's, you know, there's a miscommunication and then a quick foul of Jalen Brunson. That, that was also the unfortunate part, that Wemby just immediately fouled him, um, in a tie game. It just kind of all fell apart there.
I was in shock that when that play went down, I had a hard time processing it in real time, that not only did they turn it over, but they turned it over with a, you know, just boneheaded play, and then Victor immediately fouled. I mean, um, so problem is that, um, I think Mitch kind of liked the lineup that he had on the court. Yeah. And you know, Cat, you're right. Of course you're right. You know, there's a, there's a strong case to be made with a young team like that in a situation where they've been shaky. You call timeout, you, you get your personnel in, you set up your play. You're absolutely correct, um, but I don't think it's like a catastrophic decision, right? Right. You know, it looks bad obviously, um, but you know, I will listen to philosophies of coaches who talk about being able to start on, um, on a break. And you know, the Spurs might even have that. I know the Spurs really like it, the offense that they can run when Wembanyama is trailing. They— I mean, it's one of the things they, they want their guys to go out and run after Wembanyama rebound.
And they go and they have like offensive triggers that they can go into and then like they can downshift and toss to Wembenyama when he's trailing. And there is a whole bunch of highlights that you've seen this year. Yeah. Or Wembenyama will hit a trail 3 or drive, just go coast to coast, you know, give and go it and go coast to coast and go down and slam. In fact, the shot in Game 1 of the West Finals when he hit that 30-footer.
Yeah.
That was a similar type play where they ran, um, off of a miss. Wembenyama is trailing the play and he hits— he walks into the 3.
Yeah, yeah, it's a good point. It's a good point that you're right. Like, there's— that, that is an offense, and that's kind of how they got back in the game too, you know, running transition and, and not— because the Knicks are really good defensively. I think that's the part of the series that is kind of getting underrated, is that they're just— they're able to, to defend everything the Spurs kind of thrown at him. And KAT has been just phenomenal in that respect.
Well, so looking at the game, so KAT was, was dominating, right? Was dominating the game. There was actually a pretty interesting moment in the, um, in the press conference today. Uh, KAT was up there, and, um, so the NBA every year they have, they bring in, you know, 3 or 4 rookies, guys who were at the end of their rookie season. Um, actually in, um in San Antonio, it was draft picks. Um, let's see there, um, Caleb Wilson was there and Kingston Flemings, but oh, uh, Derek Queen was there. Um, but, um, they brought in Jeremiah Fears today from the Pelicans, and they do this thing where they have them ask questions in the press conference. And sometimes it's, you know, kind of hokey and, you know, whatever, but over the years, sometimes there's the players who are on the podium will kind of give a good answer. You know, and that happened today. Um, Fears asked Karl Towns kind of a basic question, which was like, um, you know, how did you become the best shooting big man, you know, in the NBA? And Karl Towns gave kind of like a beat-your-chest answer. He was like, you know, then— and I'm sure I'm summarizing it, please don't take this exact word for word, but it was something like, um, You know, a lot of people when I was younger told me that I shouldn't play this way, I shouldn't shoot threes.
And none of those people are around now. And some of them are going to be around and think that they're congratulating me, but they weren't really a part of this. It was kind of like, you know, wow, like, you know, take that critics. Right. You know, only he knows who he was talking about, you know, but I think he was thinking about a couple of people. And I was just like, wow, like Carl, like, you know, he's, He's screaming, you know, whatever. I can't remember what he yelled when he was going off the court. They can't effing guard me, or whatever he said. And I was like, wow, Karl Towns is like, you know, as LeBron used to say when a player was on a hot streak on the court, LeBron would yell from the bench, he feel his self. And, you know, Karl Towns was feeling himself. But I'm gonna tell you that that game got sideways That Game 2 got sideways when Towns got 2 fouls called on him in like 30 seconds. Yeah, um, both by the same official, and, and one of the calls was shaky. Maybe the Knicks fans would argue both the calls were shaky.
Towns goes out of the game in that spot, and he was never quite the same when, you know, he, it ruined his rhythm. And that's when, when Banyama started making shots. Now, he was— now you could argue he was making jumpers, um, and that like it wouldn't matter whether Towns was out there or not. He just started getting hot from the outside. But like, you can go back and look, when Towns goes out of the game with those 2 fouls in the, in the like late third, early fourth, something like that, the whole game changed. And so Towns is playing amazing, but I'm going to tell you what really made the difference, I feel, was the fact— and this sounds like such you know, bottom, you know, level baseline analysis to just say this: the Spurs couldn't get any freaking rebounds. Yeah. And I think 3 different times in the second half of Game 2, I think 3 different times the Knicks got an offensive rebound, hit a 3.
Yeah.
I mean, that is just backbreaking. And in a 1-point game And, um, that's why, like, um, today, like, the Spurs play— after Game 1, the Spurs players were saying, we're not worried, we're gonna play our game, we just have to play normal, we're gonna be fine. Today they were saying, we're playing better, we're not getting anything out of it. And I know because they're getting stops and they're giving up 3-pointers. And I just think of, like, Pat Riley, you know, the older I get, the more I see, the more I appreciate what David Stern and Pat Riley and Phil Jackson would say. Pat Riley has this statement, it's a, it's a, again, it's an elementary evaluation of basketball: no rebounds, no rings. If the Spurs just get some rebounds, they win that game.
Yeah, yeah.
And so, yeah, all of those things are contributing here.
Yeah. Um, I, I heard a rumor, Wendy, maybe you can confirm or deny. You are the Wimby Whisperer. Um, that Victor Wembenyama is working on a sky hook and he hasn't unveiled it yet. Is that true?
I haven't seen that. When— why would he need it?
It'd be unblockable.
Well, he's got some little post moves. It does feel like this is a part of the— and, and this is not a knock on him because again, he's in the NBA Finals, he's 22 years old. You could see that there's part of— we, as much as we want him to be a finished product, there's parts of his game where it's once this gets better, then you're talking about a different, different level.
Um, PFT, you could be right. I haven't seen it.
Okay, he's not letting anybody see it, right?
It's like the Manhattan Project, right? Like, um, you think like in the movie about Wembanyama's career, like, you know, in 10 years that like he's with the monks.
Yeah.
And like he's had like a hard day with the monks and he's like you know, he goes out back of the, the, um, you know, the monastery. I don't know what you call it in China. And he sees like this, you know, this monk or this like, you know, this old Chinese guy shooting skyhooks. Can't you just see the framing?
Oh, I know.
I'm gonna write it differently. I'm gonna have it be that you went— when you first met him, he was, you know, you were just— let's just say you're standing, you're doing an interview in his house and his mom makes you something and then you roll up a paper towel and you go, Windy, and do a skyhook. And he says, did you just say Wemby or Windy? And then he learns how to do the skyhook.
It's becoming a major problem at ESPN. Like everybody and their brother is stumbling over it. Like I can give you a list in the last 10 days.
I confuse you guys all the time.
Yeah, it's true.
I thought we were having the guy from the Spurs on part of my take tonight.
The first week that I met Victor, I ended up in a car with him. We were riding to an Italian restaurant. He loves— very French of him— he loves truffles. And there's this one Italian restaurant really close to where he was living at the time where you could get truffled pizza and truffled pasta. And I don't know if there was some truffle in season, but he's like, we got to go there. His agent was driving and I was sitting in the back. We're in a Range Rover, okay? And I felt so bad for Victor because you should have seen, even sitting in a Range Rover, like what his— what he had to do to get his legs in that car. Yeah. You know, and I mean, obviously I'd been in cars with very tall people before, but this was an extreme situation.
Yeah.
And I remember saying, Victor, when you get to the US, you know, you've got to discover, you know, an Escalade. Yeah, a Navigator. Like, you know, we can do— I know, I know the Range Rover is a beautiful car, but I'm like, we, we have the power, we have the ability to get you with your legs out a little bit more, buddy. I mean, you know, because he had barely been to the United States at that point.
We do cars big. All right, so I got a question about Wemby because you know him a little bit. Um, so when he says something like, you know, I'm not worried at all, or I, you know, I'm embracing this moment down, you know, 0-2, is he— is that sincere, Wemby, or is it he is so smart and studied the game for so long that he almost knows like that's what you're supposed to say if you're gonna be a Kobe, a LeBron, MJ, one of these killers? Because I can't fully understand which one is which.
I think it's both. Okay. I think he knows what he's supposed to say, but I also think he's pretty honest. Uh, this is one of the things about Viktor. The more people are gonna see, he's pretty honest. I mean, he says pretty borderline arrogant to full-blown arrogant stuff in press conferences all the time. I mean, when he first came to the US, he gives his first press conference. I'm talking about when he played that game, um, uh, when he was, you know, in his sort of gap year when he was waiting to get drafted, and he played against Scoot Henderson with, uh, the G League Ignite. He came over with his team and they played in Vegas, remember that? And, uh, they're, they're like in the lead-up to the first game, and he's like, yeah, Scoot Henderson would have been the number one pick, but he— if it— unfortunately he was born the same year as me. And I was— and, and like, he does— he says stuff like that where you don't necessarily— it doesn't come off as smack talk. And you think about, and you're damn, he just really said some trash. So he's not afraid to be like super honest.
So I take what he says mostly for the truth. Okay. Um, so I do think he feels that way. Um, and I do think like, yeah, he says I should be the MVP, you know, all these things. Like, he says how he feels, so, uh, I'm gonna take it at face value.
Okay.
Can we, uh, switch gears real quick and talk a little Giannis? Because I saw that you had some some comments about Giannis and, um, the rumor out there that maybe, uh, the Celtics might be interested in him. And you don't think that that's the case right now, correct?
Well, I just— when it comes to— this is the same thing with LeBron. I see a lot of people jumping to, to step 4, okay? And I get it, like, that's, that's what's fun about being a fan. Like, I'm not saying don't do it, but like, like, people are jumping to like LeBron taking the minimum from somebody. Now I'm like, okay, that— I guess it's under the, the realm of possibility LeBron could do it, but like, steps 1, 2, and 3 have to happen. And when it comes to, you know, the idea that the Celtics would be interested in Giannis, before there's any Giannis-Boston conversation, you got to know that Giannis wants to re-sign with the Celtics. He's got one year on his contract. You are not paying— like, let's forget about the concept of whether the Celtics would be better if they traded Jaylen Brown for Giannis. Let's, let's put that debate aside. Giannis has to say, I want to be a Celtic, because he's got one year on his contract. Jaylen Brown's under contract for like 3 more years. You're not going to take a player who's won you a championship, was under contract 3 more years, and trade him plus potentially other stuff for a player who was not committed.
So first things first, does Giannis want to be with your team? Okay, if that's a yes, then you proceed on to the idea of like, well, you know, but by the way, I'm not zooming past that a team is ready— every team in the league is ready to sign Giannis to a 4-year, $280 million extension. Probably there are a lot of them, If he gets traded, probably the team that trades for him is prepared to do that. But this guy's been really injured a lot in the last 3 years, and he's in his 30s. Um, I would probably do it, but I'm just saying, like, I'm not 100% certain that the Celtics feel that way.
If we're— so, gun to your head, gun to your head, so you have to answer this question. Yeah. Where is he playing next year?
I think, I think Miami is a strong contender to trade for him at this moment. Um, I think there are some other teams that are— can and will make compelling offers leading up to the draft. Um, but I think Giannis— that's a place where I think Giannis wants to play, and I think that's a place where they would sign him. So they satisfy, you know, and they want to trade for him. Like, these are 3 check— check marks that I can put in the Miami ledger. Okay. I think there's some other teams that would like to get there to that point. Um, I don't think Miami can make the best offer. Um, you know, and, you know, the people in— the folks, some of the folks in Miami think that they can make the best offer. You know, that's a debate. Um, and nobody will know all the offers except for the people in the Bucs front office. But I'll say this, look at the— Jimmy Haslam owns the Cleveland Browns. Okay, I don't know anything about the player. I don't know— I don't know anything about football. I don't know anything about the player that he just traded for with Miles Garrett.
But I know that they traded for draft compensation and a player who can help them immediately, who's under contract. It would seem to me that he would have the same standard for a Giannis trade. And, and it's any— and it's, it's not clean because he's only a part owner. You know, you have the general manager, you have what Giannis potentially would want, you have the other owner Wes Edens who technically has the governorship right now. But like, that trade that he made, okay, with Myles Garrett— you think about this, they got 9 years out of him, okay? The team is no longer a contender with him, okay? He is still in his prime. They flip him for a guy who was younger under control and significant draft compensation, right? Giannis is in his 30s. He's— I think he and Myles Garrett, they're maybe like almost the same age. They may be off by a year, off, right? Um, that is, I think, the kind of return that he would want, the same type of, of package. Um, so, and I think the fact that Jimmy Haslam made that trade with the Browns kind of gives you an idea of what he thinks about where, where a franchise could be.
Because I don't think the Browns are contenders next year. This I do know because I'm a Browns fan. And I don't think the Bucs are contenders next year. Yeah.
And so trade them to the Niners for Brock Purdy.
I don't know enough about— I don't— that may be a great comparison. I don't know enough about, uh, who's— you could be joking on— it goes over my head.
Who's Deshaun Watson in this? Would this be like the Bucs signing Terry Rozier?
Hey, I am being told that Deshaun Watson is ready for a comeback.
You have two quarterbacks. Careful with the things you have. You have two quarterbacks. Todd Monken said you gotta guess which two, but you have two.
He said that.
Wait, so wait, you said something there though that was interesting. You— so you don't think LeBron is gonna sign a vet minimum with Cleveland?
I mean, it's not impossible, but the idea that that is where he's at right now, I, you know It, it could happen. I still have not heard definitively LeBron's playing next year. Now, is he probably going to play? Like, if you said to me you have to make a projection right now, I would say I think he's going to play. But like, people have got him in a minimum with the Cavs and starting opening night, and I, I'm not even sure he's playing. Okay, let's say he decides to play. Fine. Now, is he going to sign with the Lakers? All right, can they work out a deal? Can the Lakers work out a deal where they retain LeBron but they also get him into a salary that is— you know, because the thing about LeBron is the Lakers to some extent will be bidding against themselves, right? Because the teams that have salary cap space, um, you know, Chicago, Brooklyn, you know You know, Detroit, I guess Detroit could, but it doesn't make sense for those teams, right? So that if, if the Lakers are like bidding like way up $25-30 million, they are in fact bidding against themselves.
I don't think anybody— they're not like trying to beat a competing offer. At the same time, LeBron was an All-NBA player this year, and he's also a, an all-time legend. And Jerry Buss set the standard for the Lakers that you treat your legendary players well so that you can get more legendary players. This is a cornerstone of the Lakers business operations, and Jeanie Buss has picked that up. So do you really want LeBron to walk out the door disgruntled because you're trying to get the best deal and not bid against yourself? Because let's say you do let him walk, what's your plan in free agency? Like, there isn't, uh, you know, LeBron 2010 isn't there, you know. You're not trading out LeBron 2026 for LeBron 2010, right? Like, you know, so I believe that LeBron and the Lakers can probably come to terms on an agreement that will help them, that will get them both in a good place. But it could get a little bit rocky because the, the Lakers would essentially probably be bidding against themselves. Okay, let's say you get past that. Let's say you get LeBron's gonna play. Okay, check that box.
And you get to the point where LeBron and the Lakers can't come to terms. And I'm not ready, I'm not ready for that yet. I am not ready to say that that was going to happen. I still think that that is most likely, 51% or whatever, not guaranteed but most likely. Okay, now let's say you've now checked that box, and I see people setting land speed records running past that like it's no, like it's no big deal. Then you have to say, okay, if LeBron's going to leave in free agency and he's going to take a pay cut. How much pay cut is he willing to— is he willing to take? Because he's making $55 million and made All-NBA, okay? And, you know, the minimum is $3 million. And people say, well, the guy's a billionaire, like, what's the difference to him whether he takes $3 million or $55 million? Cool. If you want to spend $50 million of his dollars You can do that, and we may get to, to June 10th or, you know, June 18th, and I might be told LeBron is in fact willing to play for the minimum. And if that's the case, then we're going to have a different conversation.
I have not been told that. Maybe he's made that decision. Maybe other reporters— maybe Shams knows right now that LeBron's willing to play for the minimum. I haven't heard that. I'm not going to tell you that I know everything. I haven't heard it. But that's a big gap to make. And by the way, in between that is, well, what if he would play for another amount of money, like $15 million, which is what the mid-level exception is? Which a team like, you know, a team like Golden State could potentially get there if they do some things. If they make some decisions, they could potentially get there. Um, there's just a ton of check— of places to checkmark. But if you ask me on the stand Could LeBron play for the, for the Cavs for the minimum? Sure, it's not against the law. It could, it could happen, but there's a lot of things that have to, that have to fall into place first.
Yeah, I would play for free, for the record. Um, what have you heard, uh, regarding Anthony Edwards after, after these playoffs? Is he, is he still in a good space with Minnesota?
I think we have to see what Minnesota wants to do, what they do with their roster, you know. Um, Minnesota was trying to trade for, um, Giannis at the deadline. Okay, so they ended up having a pretty good playoff run. Um, you know, uh, they've won 5 playoff series the last, uh, 3 years. Um, I don't think, you know, I think, yeah, I think, uh, Ant misses KAT because the double teams that now come his way Um, they really annoy him. You can tell it really gets under his skin, the double teams. Um, and they— those double teams didn't come as frequently when he was playing with a guy who could kill you from the outside like that. Um, and so the— you know, if I were Ant Edwards, I'd be like— because, you know, one of the reasons they traded— and not, not one of— the main reason they traded him was to get out of the second apron. It wasn't even so much— I mean, they saved money, absolutely, but they had to get out of the second apron. And if I was Ant Edwards, I'd be like, well, Jalen Brunson has Karl Towns, and, um, they ain't in the second apron, you know.
And, you know, Brunson and Towns are thriving together. And I mean, Ant's like, you know, what's going on here? Um, but they want— they were trying to get Giannis at the deadline, and last year at the deadline they were trying to get Kevin Durant. So we know that the Timberwolves are trying to get superstar players. You know, they're trying. That's what their actions are telling us. So they haven't gotten them yet, and they've done a good job with the talent they have considering their injuries. Um, so I— so let's see what happens this summer. I, you know, Ant has multiple years left on his contract. He's not at the place— and I have not heard, you know, I know maybe other people have heard something. Again, I'm not— I don't have the market cornered on all intelligence. I have not heard that Ant is anything but dedicated to the Timberwolves. But I do know the Timberwolves feel a level of pressure to improve their roster. I know this because they tried to trade for Durant and they tried to trade for Giannis, and they may be trying to trade for Giannis again. So let's see where the Wolves are at the end of the summer.
Um, Windy, we didn't have you on before the playoffs. How did the hotel reservations go? What were the— what were the ones you made? Did you get them right?
Yeah, so I canceled 10 hotel reservations I had in Boston. I took a photo, I took a photo of my inbox when I canceled all 10 because, you know, you don't know whether you have to have them for the different dates, right? You know, like you don't just make one for 2 weeks. The Finals can be all kinds of different dates. They could be the home team, they could be the road team. The Finals could move a little bit. Um, I had to cancel 10 because I had it for the Conference Finals and Finals. Okay. Um, So I had egg all over my face on Boston. Um, I made, um, I made reservations in Oklahoma City and San Antonio. I made Oklahoma City reservations like in November. And, uh, guys, I had such a crazy rate in Oklahoma City. I literally was gonna pay like $107 an eye. I mean, ESPN pays, but yeah, I was gonna bring down our whole average as a company. I had this hotel for $107 a night. I mean, like, if you wouldn't booked it, like, during the Western Conference Finals, it was like $350. Yeah, look at that.
I scored this incredible deal that was, you know, gonna make a significant difference on ESPN's bottom line, which they were never gonna say anything. Um, but, uh, it broke my heart to cancel those, uh, great reservations. But I also made reservations in San Antonio.
Okay.
And I made them, like, in— there was some moment in January or February where I said Victor's, Victor's ready. And I, and I swear, so those were the three that I had going into the playoffs.
Oh, she didn't have the Knicks.
I did not have the Knicks. Wow. And I, and I never made them in Cleveland, even though I was in Cleveland, my hometown. Yeah, uh, for the Conference Finals. Uh, I, you know, I never made them in Cleveland. I'm sorry to say to the Cavs, uh, fans.
Um, wait, what kind of rate did you get for the Knicks?
Yeah, you got to be—
you probably— it's bad. It's really bad. And you know, there's the, the World Cup If there is a Game 6, um, you're sleeping on the streets. Yeah, it's, it's— I mean, it's going to be bad. We're going to be sleeping in Jersey, and I think I might have to walk through the tunnel. You know what, I'll say right now, letting— they're not letting cars in.
The Barstool New York office is on— is literally like a stone's throw from Madison Square Garden. You can sleep on a couch Uh, there's a shower in there too.
Let's negotiate.
Um, that one's on the house.
Amazing.
You know, like, all you have to do is just be on Pick Central before you go over to MSG. Just do one live show and then go get over there.
Yeah, get on over.
No, I made reservations in New York after, um, after I saw them demolish Philly. And I mean, so I, you know, I admit I was not on the Knicks. I did not see the Knicks making this run.
That, um, that's the craziest part about this is like, I, I think everyone thought the East was, you know, a week— well, everyone knew the East was weaker than the West going into the playoffs just in terms of the talent at the top. But there weren't a lot of people who were like, this Knicks team is going to just steamroll everyone. And they have steamrolled everyone. It is one of the greatest runs we've seen in like NBA. If they finish this job, especially if they finish it in in the next 2 games, it will be one of the greatest runs we've ever seen in terms of team basketball.
Is there a person on this planet who, if, if 45 days ago when they were down 2-1 to the Hawks— and I'm talking about Karl Towns's father, or Karl Towns himself, or the biggest Karl Towns fan in the Northeast If I, um, told them 45 days ago that number one, the Knicks would not lose for 45 days, they would be like, oh, did they lose the next— you know, did they— that's a forfeit this year. Like, you know, are they out? Is that why they haven't lost? Right. Um, that the Knicks would not lose for 45 days and that Carl Towns would dominate Victor Wembanyama to such a degree that he was saying, they can't do any effing thing with me, or whatever he said coming off the court, and he was a strong candidate to be the Finals MVP 2 games into the Finals. Was there anybody who would have genuinely believed that that was true?
No, like, I don't think so.
I'm, you know, like, like, you know, in their heart of hearts, if anybody would have said that, it's just, it's completely unpredictable.
Yeah, it's right. And what do you think it what's the biggest change that you've noticed with Cat's defense? Because he is playing defense now. What was there a moment where you said, oh, he's figured something out?
I— so first off, this is the thing, and this again sounds like elementary analysis. Cat is very big.
Yes.
You know, and when you have size, you know, it makes a difference. You know, there's so— you know, there's the Thunder and other teams have tried to use smaller players on Wembanyama. When I watched him play in France when he was 18. That's what the teams— by the second time around, you know, they played like, you know, round robin in the French league. By the second time around the league, that's what they had gone to. They had started playing their strongest big, their strongest forward. They gave up trying to play centers on them, and they just put like the strong power forward on them. And that's happened in the NBA. Teams are just trying to put like their strongest forward on him, whether that's Julius Randle or Alex Caruso. And so when the series started, we're like, okay, are they going to go with Anunoby out of the gate? Are they going to try Josh Hart? And here comes Carl Towns from the first possession. Not like, okay, Anunoby has 2 fouls, Josh Hart's exhausted, Mitchell Robinson, it's Tack 'em Mitch time, get him out of the court. Nope, he was on the game plan because the Knicks coaching staff believed that he could do it because they watched him and they studied him and they said, hey, listen, in the games he's played against Cat— against Towns or against, uh, Victor, he's held his own.
And part of it is he's just got really good size and he can move his feet a little bit. I mean, he's not going to confuse you for like a Defensive Player of the Year. He's not out there like Gobert, but he can move his feet a little bit and he's long and Victor can't get past him. And he's avoided stupid fouls. He got the 2 fouls real quick, but I'm gonna give him a pass on that in Game 2 because I'm— I feel like one of them was really questionable. But he's avoiding stupid fouls, he's been fine with physical play, and he's just at times, he's just shoving Victor out of the way. Like there's a rebound coming, he's like, no. You're not getting it. Yeah.
And he won the tip the other night against, against Viktor.
The nick. I know. I know. It's crazy.
It's like this is a level of effort that we haven't even thought about seeing from, from Cat over the entire course of the year.
And the coaches knew it and believed in him and put him in that position. Yeah. So he sounds like a different guy.
Yeah.
Yeah. His entire demeanor is different. And like, the confidence that he was talking about today when he was talking to Jeremiah Fears, um, he was basically like, um, all the people that badmouth me or whatever, like, they don't get to celebrate this chapter with me. He was like talking about like somebody who truly had arrived. Well, I was like, I'm like, I'm like, wow, like, Carl, because I mean I've followed Karl's career for a long time. I remember, you know, the day he was drafted, I did an interview with him for ESPN, like a sit-down interview in Minneapolis. And, you know, I've, you know, I've done feature stories on him and stuff, and I've covered him at the World Cup when he's played for the Dominican, and he talked about all that stuff. Like, this is a completely different Karl Towns that I'm seeing on the court, and I'm hearing talk about the game.
I'm very happy for him. Yeah, because he is someone who gets maligned for, uh, stupid reasons a lot of times. He becomes, you know, an internet joke, and it's, it's really cool that he's having these moments. And the way he's talking about the game and his mom after the game, it's cool. It just— like, these are why we watch sports, like these type of redemption arcs.
Can I just say, I don't mean to interrupt you, Cat. Yeah, in Game 1, he was doing this interview, the game had just ended. And he's talking about like this real deep philosophical stuff about, you know, how his mother was looking down on him. Yeah. And like, literally, he's still sweating. He's not— he didn't say this 2 days later. Like, he's like, he's like, he— like, his mental space is very aligned too. I don't know, it's so— like, you know, sometimes you hear the phrase 'put it all together' Maybe that's what we're seeing here.
It feels that way. Um, Wendy, what, what type of sunglasses you wear?
Um, I had Maui Jims for a couple years and I recently broke them.
Okay.
In a stupid way, I slammed my car door on them. So I bought 2 or 3 very cheap pairs off of Amazon. I think they're $20. I don't even know the brand.
You're serving looks in the San Antonio heat. The hair was going. The glasses were going. You were— you're like, I think a lot of guys look at you, you're like, damn, that guy's— he's got everything.
Give my man some shady rays.
Yeah, we'll get you some.
Yeah.
So listen, we— I know you guys have done a lot of shows like out in the, you know, when you go on the road during football season and it's like still hot. So like, I don't know what kind of stuff you got taken care of, but like the crew that we had in San Antonio was prepared. We had— you couldn't see it— we had air conditioning ducts.
Oh, we don't get that. No, we don't get that.
That was shooting— I mean, it wasn't like cold air, but it was like chilled air up at us. You couldn't even see. I wasn't even sweating.
Oh wow.
I was like, you've gone soft. This sounds like, you know, some A-list type stuff here.
I know. This is— I got the, the McAfee treatment. I got the Stephen A treatment. Like, we had the— we had like what Chris Berman would have. Like, we got the— you deserve treatment. Yeah, I never had such effort been done to make sure I was comfortable. And so I was up— I mean, it was hot as hell, and we had great fans there. Out of all the outdoor shows we've ever done during the Finals over the years, the fans in San Antonio were the best fans. And there were Knicks fans there too, and the sides were getting along, maybe because it was early in the series. But man, I, I was fine. Like, you know, I, you know, Perk was up there sweating. I don't know, maybe, maybe the— maybe they didn't hook him up. Maybe he wasn't getting it blowing on his head. Like, I was— I, I had a cool drink. I could have sat there all day.
Perk runs hot.
Yeah.
What do you think Stephen A has in store for us with the series going back to New York? Is he— is this good? Is he going to be humble? Is he keeping his head down? Is he just like one game at a time, or do you think he's he's ready to start the parade.
He's trying to maintain his composure because what you— if you're on Stephen A at all, you will see that when the cameras turn off, he's still very much like the guy you see on TV. Now obviously he turns up a little bit, and I'm not saying if you wake him up at 3 in the morning he's going to be like that, but he— after Game 1, he, he did Scott Van Pelt. I could see him holding it in on Van Pelt. He did not want to go crazy. He did Van Pelt and he got off the air. And he— so he's, you know, no one was seeing this. And he just came to me and he grabs my jacket and he goes, '3 more.' He was almost like vibrating. He was like, '3 more.' Like, it is— his Knicks fandom is not an act. Like, he may amplify it obviously to a certain extent for a television audience to be entertaining, But his core fandom is there. I've watched it. Yeah. And so he is, he is trying to maintain his composure. I don't know what's going to happen if they win 2 more games.
It's, it's, it's going to be a scene. I'm excited for, for tonight watching at MSG. All right, Wendy, you're the best. I got one last question for you. Rowback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com promo code TAKE 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts at Rowback.com promo code TAKE. Again, listen to The Hoop Collective, watch Windy on ESPN. They're going to have, you know, draft coverage coming up after the NBA Finals, free agency, everything. He's going to have us tuned in for all that. Zach, do you have a question for Windy? We have two massive Knicks fans in our booth, Zach and Memes. Zach, Memes, if you had a question too, you can throw one out there. You guys, you boys got a question for Windy?
How are we doing today, sir?
I'm doing great. You don't have to call me sir.
My God.
He calls us. He calls us sir too every day. It's crazy.
I was curious, a little bit earlier in the interview you spoke to being around this Knicks team here recently. Just as a viewer from home watching the games, I've never really seen a team across any sports or any sport play with such unity that I'm seeing on the court with the Knicks. Like, the togetherness that you can feel when they're out there playing, like when one guy's kind of down, not doing the best, they're right there picking him back up and vice versa. And I was just wondering if you could speak to kind of how that's been to see up close.
Yeah, so I spent a week with the Knicks in Abu Dhabi back in October. I went there, they had like a, you know, they played 2 games there. Philly was there too. And I spent that week with them and they were very confident about this season. They like, I think they genuinely believed they could do this from day 1. And so did, They're like— so did Jim Dolan. Like, Jim Dolan, like, whatever level the Giannis trade was offered— I know there's all this playing with language, and I know that the, the Bucks have had like one foot in and one foot out, and Giannis is the same, whatever— but the phone call was made, the conversation was had, and they were like, no, we're good, we're good, okay? And, um, they didn't change their roster at all from last year. I mean, you know, I, you know, they added like some guys to the edge like, like Shamet or whatever, but it's the same team because they— because like, I think I see these teams lose in the, in the, in the playoffs and then you inevitably get like, well, they've got to make big changes.
And like, the Knicks were like, no, we believe in this team. And so number one, how many playoff series has this core played together? They've played like, I don't know, probably, you know, over the last 2 years it's been 7 playoff series. Like the year before maybe was 2. Like, they've had like 9 or 10 playoff series of this core together. You— that's, that's your 10,000 hours. You go through like 3 or 4 seasons and like 9 playoff series, highs and lows. And the organization like spoke to them and was basically like, we trust all of you, we believe in all of you, this team. And like from day one, like they didn't care what seed they were. Like, obviously if they were this fighting for the 6th seed, we'd have had a problem. But like, they didn't care they were the 3rd seed. All they cared about was like getting healthy and getting their games to where they wanted to go. And the other thing is, this crowd, this Garden crowd, they love this team. Like, the Garden crowd is, is obviously typically boisterous but typically very cynical. This crowd loves this team. They love this team like they're the '94 Knicks.
Regardless what happens in this series 20 years from now, you're going to be seeing Josh Hart, Mikael Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Mitchell Robinson sitting courtside because the fans love this team. And there's a real— there's a— there's a real unity that comes along with that. Now, you watch them play, there's a discipline when they drive the ball 5 times in the same possession and keep kicking it out. I mean, that's coaching, that's, you know, togetherness, that's discipline. But like, it didn't just happen overnight. Like, This is a thing that, you know, people try to steal things from other teams. They never— nobody ever wants to steal patience. They want to steal the player, they want to steal a coach, they want to steal executive. Nobody ever wants to steal patience because patience is hard. It's, it's slow. Well, that's what this team's had. They've had patience. And you know what? You look under the hood a little bit, you look at Leon Rose, and I'm just telling you, I'm not close to Leon Rose in case like anybody thinks I'm carpet for him. Like, he used to be LeBron's agent. I would see him all year long.
He doesn't— he kept the media at arm's length. Maybe he talked to some media members. I mean, we have a cordial relationship, you know. He, you know, he sort of works in silence. Leon Rose put together the Big Three in Miami. Now, I know Pat Riley played a role, and obviously LeBron, Dwyane, and Bosh had to get together and do it, but Leon Rose organized that. He, he was with CAA. He got all of them to agree to contracts that were the same length. He got them all on the same page. He like set all that up. Like, that was like, like he was— he, his hand was on the steering wheel of that move. And now look at this, he's on the steering wheel, his hands on the steering wheel of potentially breaking this long— I mean, obviously the players have to do it and Brunson has to be great. I'm not saying, but like Look at this badass. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And like this other guy that, you know, and Wes— Wesley— Leon and Wes are pretty much side by side. There's this other guy who works in the Knicks front office.
His name is Brock Ahler. Nobody knows what he looks like. He doesn't want anybody to know what he looks like. Okay, Brock Ahler was in the Cavs. He was the Cavs head of strategy and cap management when they put the team together that built that championship. Now obviously I know LeBron James was the one who won that championship. And LeBron called Kevin Love and said, Kevin, please come to come with me. And that, that was like— I don't want to make it sound like it wasn't, but they did like 10 different creative, weird-ass revolutionary moves to put that team together. And he helped break the 53 or 54-year drought in Cleveland without a championship. Now he's here, okay? And Leon Rose hired him because he was LeBron's agent and he saw how he worked. He was like, this guy's a killer that nobody knows about. He hired him here. And all these Knicks maneuvers— like, the Knicks made like 3 or 4 underground, like, stealth moves to get the cap space to sign Jalen Brunson. The Mavericks didn't even think that he was going to New York because they didn't have the cap space, right?
They're like, they're like, they can't get him, and if they want to get him, they got to call us to do a sign-and-trade. We're not doing it. All of a sudden, smoke and mirrors came out, and the Knicks popped out on the other end with enough cap space, and the Mavericks were like, whoa, how'd they do that? And the Carl Towns trade, go look at it, that was some wild-ass wizardry to do the Carl Towns trade and keep them under the second apron. Anyway, what I'm saying to you is all of these guys on the Knicks are deeply, deeply invested on like a 5-year plan, and all of them have like done a great job, whether it's Josh Hart, whether it's Bridges, whether it's Brunson, All of them have done a great job. So there's this really incredible franchise alignment that's coming together. And they get 2 more wins and they all get rings. Sometimes your franchise comes together and you don't get rings and you all get fired. That happens more often than not. But you talk about togetherness, it's because all of these guys are masters at what they do, whether it's Josh Hart getting rebounds or Mitchell Robinson being the goon off the bench, whether it's Jalen Brunson as the clutch guy, whether it's the stretch 5 of Carl Towns, whether it's the coach, whether it's the GM, whether it's the strategy guy, they're all really good at what they do.
They've all been— they've all got years, uh, combined into them. I know I'm filibustering here. And they all get it aligned and they all play their— they all do their best at the exact same time. In a way, it's kind of beautiful. And the city here in New York is absolutely in love with it. And people are saying to me, like, don't you think it's going to be crazy inside the Garden Monday night? It's gonna be crazy in the city. When I saw the videos when the game ended, like, people who were over in Jersey and they could hear the city reacting to the Knicks winning. Like, you see videos like in, you know, Buenos Aires or Paris when like PSG scores or Argentina scores and you hear the city react. That is how New York is being right now. The special thing happening in New York isn't just in the Garden, it's in the city. And they all love these guys, and they're all playing, and they're doing their jobs in the best— it's kind of beautiful in a way. And it's not something that we normally see from the Knicks, and it's not something we normally see from like a, a big city.
Normally this is a small town thing. Yeah. So that's what's all happening right now.
It is beautiful. It's not kind of beautiful. It's why we watch sports, like, you know, the community and everyone coming together. It's awesome. Memes, do you have a question?
You just fired me up by saying that.
Can you hear how fired up Memes is right now? I'm so fired up.
I have a question about your career. What is the Mount Rushmore of finals that you've covered?
Oh, great question.
Great question, Memes.
Man, why didn't I do this on my own podcast?
Yeah.
Um, all right, well, 2016— 2016 was the most amazing year of my career because you have to understand, Kobe is retiring and he goes on that tour where like every stop the players are, you know, are washing his feet, you know, and like it's just amazing. And he has the 60-point game to end it, you know, Mamba Out, iconic moment. The Warriors win 73. And we see them do that chase during the year. Conference Finals, Game 6, Klay— Warriors are down 3-1, come back and win. Finals, Cavs are down 3-1, come back, win. Cleveland, this is for you. Even though of those 7 games, like, 5 of them were not close, um, and like, I have like no recollection of anything that actually happened in like Game 3, um 2016, definitely on Mount Rushmore.
Yeah.
Um, Heat-Spurs 2013, the Ray Allen shot. Um, and then really an under— you know, people all remember the Game 6 comeback in Miami. Um, Ray Allen, because of that shot and everything, was amazing. But Game 7 was a tremendously highly contested, well-played game. Where LeBron hit a couple of enormous shots down the stretch of that game to seal that championship.
Is that the one that— was that the game that Duncan missed the, the hook shot? The bunny?
Yeah, Duncan misses the bunny and LeBron comes down with 1 second on the shot clock, hits the shot that puts them— goes from 2 to 4 to basically ice it. You know, one of the biggest shots LeBron's career that, you know, when people say what are the highest LeBron's career, they never mentioned that. I was like, oh well, he just made like a gigantic clutch jumper to win a championship. Like, why would that be on your list? But, um, so that was— and that was a little bit different. That was a 2-3-2 series. The situation was different. Um, you know, um, San Antonio came back to Miami up 3-2, and Miami won the last 2 games. Um, it was— I think it was like the sort of convinced them to change it, quite frankly. So that's, um, that's there. Um, I guess I would put last year's up there. I mean, a 7-game Finals last year where Indiana like steals Game 1 and, you know, you know, has a masterful performance in Game 6 to force a Game 7. Um, you know, any, any 7-game, uh, Finals, you know, is, uh, is up there. And then let me think, the fourth one, um, I, I, I enjoy, you know, the, the Finals with the Celtics and the Warriors.
Um, the Warriors were down in that series 2-1, and the Celtics were looking very strong. And in TD Garden in Game 4, Steph puts up 40, um, which is my second favorite Steph moment after the, the Olympics, which will, you know, is on my Mount Rushmore. The two great experiences I've ever had covering a game were 2016 Game 7, where nobody could score for 15 minutes, and the block and the shot and what have you. Then the second one was watching Curry throw in 4 threes or whatever in that 4th quarter in Paris and literally break the French's heart. And, you know, seeing him run down the court and give the night night while Carmelo was jumping 15 feet in the air you know, as he ran past the, um, you know, the American players. Um, you know, that's up there too. I mean, I don't know if I can put— sneak that on my Mount Rushmore, but that series where the— because that Warriors team, he obviously had won the 3 titles and then they crashed their team all the way down, rebuilt it, and came back up with sort of a differently structured team and beat a team in Boston that was a championship-level team.
They obviously came back later and won, you know, 1, 2 years later, but to see Steph score 40 in the Garden and then come back and close them out there, the, you know, the, you know, the, the cream of the crop moment. I really think that was the, you know, the real jewel of the, of the Warriors run. They obviously, you know, had 3 other championships, but that one in 2022 just meant so much more to them. So I, I would think I would sneak that on there, but I reserve the right to say that I forgot a certain series, and I could just say that you creatively edited it out and you screwed me.
Yeah, I reserve that. No, this is great answer. Um, Windy, you're the best. Also, next time you come to Chicago, please tell us. You were here for a couple days for, for the, for the draft lottery.
I was— I would love to do— I was there for like 20 hours.
Okay.
Um, I love Chicago, especially in the spring. I have great memories of covering Cavs-Bulls and Heat-Bulls playoff series. As you guys know, it is amazing in the spring and early summer. It's like Toronto. Like, being in Chicago and Toronto in June is unbelievable. Um, but the Bulls have to keep up their end of the bargain. Yeah, I haven't been there for Bulls for a while, but, um, but yeah, next time I'm in Chicago, I'll let you know I'm coming.
Okay, love it. Wendy, you're the best. Enjoy, uh, Game 3. Enjoy your live show on Tuesday night. I feel like Knicks fans are no longer gonna be mad at you. They're too happy. So, uh, you're, you're on the good side.
No, they're mad at me because I said that I thought that the Celtics would beat them last year.
Yeah, and you shouldn't have.
That was— how could you? Um, I have a question for you before I go.
Yeah.
Um, what do you— when I say the words Hammond, Indiana, what do you say?
Okay, uh, we already, we already talked about this.
Uh, oh, I'm sorry.
No, no, it's fine. I've tied It's, it's just ridiculous. Well, actually, my first, my first reaction would be Horseshoe Casino. Great casino. Great casino in Hammond, Indiana. Spent, had some actually incredible blackjack runs at Hammond, Indiana. It's just a joke. The whole thing's a joke. It's insane that we're here.
They've blocked their way here.
Okay.
Yeah. And they're building the stadium, a new stadium in Cleveland at the airport.
Right.
And let me just tell you, when I was in my early 20s and I, and I bought my first condo for $95,000, I bought it in Brook Park, Ohio, where they're building the stadium. And I think it's insane. Yeah. Literally nobody ever in their lives has ever said, let's do something cool. What are we going to do? Let's go to the Cleveland airport.
Yeah.
So I'm saying that as a former resident of this city.
Yeah.
And a Cleveland Browns fan, and they're going to move it off of the lakefront and they're taking it to the airport. Okay, and when I say take you to the airport, I'm not saying like it's, it's, you know, it's 5 miles from the airport. The runway is here, and like, uh, Patrick Mahomes bomb, the football stadium is there. It's across the street. Nobody— they said, well, that's what they're— where the land was. Well, no kidding. Yeah. Now, as insane as it is to build a football stadium in Cleveland at the airport, that the Bears are— two options are next, you know, a suburb of Madison, Wisconsin, and Hammond, Indiana.
It's crazy.
What the hell is going on?
It's, it sucks. It sucks. I think all the new stadiums— I, I think we're going to get to a point— we've talked about this before The Browns, perfect example. The Bears. We're going to get to a point in like 20, 25 years where we're going to look back and be like, why did we put all of our football stadiums indoors? What, like, what, what, why did we do that? We just took, we took this element of it and we moved them all out, out of their cities and the Chiefs are moving and the Broncos are moving indoors. The Browns are going indoors, going to the airport. The Bears might be going to Hamilton. I think it's going to be a big regret. I think we're going to look back and be like, why did we do that?
Let's put an indoor stadium at the airport. Why is Soldier Field need replaced?
It doesn't need replaced. It's the Bears don't own Soldier Field, so they lease it from the city of Chicago. The city of Chicago, which is actually a great thing that they've, they've done forever, is that no private company can own anything east of Lake Shore Drive. So basically the entire stretch of the lake is for the public, which is great because you don't want it to be the entire— all the lakefront is just private condos for the richest people. So the Bears can't own a stadium there. The, the city owns the stadium. They lease it from the city. And the pressure is coming from the NFL basically saying build the new stadium so that the Bears now can be worth $8 billion instead of $7 billion. It all sucks. And like anything in these situations, the biggest loser, whether it be the Browns, the Chiefs, the Bears, the Bron— the biggest loser is always going to be the fans and the taxpayers. So, all right, yeah, sorry. No, it sucks. Um, I'm still holding out hope that they just are like, this whole thing's stupid, we'll just stay at Soldier Field. I know it's probably not going to happen.
All right, all right. The Redskins are building a beautiful stadium in the middle of the town, right, PFT? Like it's no problem.
They're moving back. Yeah, so that's, that's where they were.
The Redskins would be the leaders.
What happened—
I'm sorry, the Commanders.
I'm sorry, Commanders. Yeah, yeah, uh, with the football team, you can call them whatever you want. But yeah, they did what the Bears are doing right now, is exactly what they did back in the early to mid-'90s, which was a terrible mistake. Terrible mistake. They moved to a soulless dump in the middle of nowhere. The one thing they had the foresight to do, they made the town change the name when the Redskins moved up there. Now they changed it to something stupid called Raljon, Maryland, which was the first names of Jack Kent Cooke's sons Ralph and John. So they called it Ral John Maryland. I was telling Big Cat that, that Hammond, they should change the name of the town, or at least where the stadium is, and just call it like Bear Country. Yeah, like you're in Bear Country, Indiana. You're in Bear Country, Indiana. Like, welcome to the cave. Yeah, you know, like that would, that would at least be a nice moment.
This is why you're a marketing genius.
Yeah, but this is what I'm looking forward to in 40 years when we're still hopefully doing Pardon my take, we'll be going back to the city of Chicago.
Big Cat's gonna be looking at the, uh, the, like, architecture renderings of what the stadium's gonna look like on Lakeshore Drive and be like, oh, this is gonna be so—
you'll just be recording it at 4 PM.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be like Tony and Mike special.
You guys will be like Tony and Mike, and you'll do your show at 4 PM like Tony and Mike.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, all right, Wendy, you're the best. We love having you on, and, uh, enjoy Monday night.
Have a great week.
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Uh, you're probably having the best time ever. Friends, family, everyone's hanging out. You stop checking the time and small talk escalates to laughing so hard that you can barely catch your breath. That is the Cuervo effect. It's a signal that everybody understands, a moment that anyone can join and a good time that just grows. All you have to do is keep it Cuervo.
All right, boys. I'm pissed, by the way. Did you guys see this fake lazy river?
Yeah, it's—
yeah, the Costco one. Yeah. I mean, well, Dante tweeted being like, hey, we should buy this. I just said I'm in. And then I find out it's fake. That thing would have been awesome.
Yeah.
Why don't we—
why don't they have it? We should have a lazy river.
That, that's one of those ones where like it's too— Costco does have deals like that, but they're like, hey, here's a lazy river for $999.
That might have radicalized me against AI, like fully. Like, I'm done with AI.
Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, that's so spot on that I'm pissed because that should exist and it should be as cheap as $999. Yeah, Max just pulled one up that's $10 grand. I want my Because, you know, the one that you— if Costco ever did this for under $1,000, you'd buy it. It'd work for like a week and then it would break. But it would be the greatest week of your life.
The funniest part was that Dante saw Lazy River for $999. He was like, do I know anyone that can afford this? Like, yeah, I would, I would see if it was $999, I would buy it first, ask questions later.
Dude, it's $999. That's not $1,000.
Yeah. That's how they get you.
99. Yeah, that's how they get you.
May or may not be having a— having conversation about a flight simulator. Full-size flight simulator.
Don't we have one?
No. Like, I'm talking like cockpit. I'm talking like it moves.
Didn't we buy like a whole computer and set up? We never used to stream.
I did.
And then we never use it again.
So I bought it.
That's in— that's Zach's stream.
Corner. Yeah. Is it— do we have the simulator still?
I have it.
Yeah. Is it your house?
It's at my house. But we've got the VR, like the headset right there and the joystick right there. But I'm talking like an actual, like, F-18 cockpit.
Are you talking— you're talking about—
and then you said it moves and it moves. It goes like up and down. Muhammad Atta F-18.
Well, no, just saying, like the flight simulator that moves.
No, that's a—
that's a different one.
Okay. That was a different one because we don't want that. I only work on takeoff off and landing.
They announced updates to Microsoft Flight Sim today.
Did they?
At the showcase?
Yeah.
Oh, the showcase. Did you watch this showcase live?
Not live, but I did watch it.
You would have actually had them interested if you had mentioned that part, Zach.
Yeah, Zach, you got to hit us with what we like.
Okay, so Microsoft Flight Sim 2024, they announced updates.
What are the updates? Do they have military aircraft now? Can you fire missiles?
I didn't have the exact Spartan notes on what they're putting into it. I just know they're revamping a little bit, which is exciting.
That is exciting.
Maybe upgrade your weapons.
Yeah. Hey, it's birthday week for Hank. How about that?
Yeah. Oh, you said Wednesday on, on the Friday show.
Your birthday's Saturday. Yeah, I got my dates confused. Yeah, your birthday's Saturday. I know your birthday. It's June. It's June 13th.
Also, shout out to my grandfather's birthday today.
Oh yeah, happy birthday, Hank's grandfather. All right, numbers. 2.
No, that's what I was gonna go.
I'll go with 11.
4. You guys just— you, you never guessed 2?
No, but 2 more wins.
25. Oh, I didn't even put that together.
Yeah, I have, I have one with 2, but that was for 21.
What's your guess?
Pain, what's up dude?
All right, what, what numbers have been guessed?
You should guess 4 memes.
What, what numbers have been picked?
2.
I, I guessed 11.
Nice.
I did 25.
Okay, I had 98.
I did 4. 21. I'll do 3.
Shane. Josh Hart. Shane, what's up, dude?
42 for me, 12 for Peyton.
Shane, what's up? What's up, guys? You mad at us? No.
Shane, what did you order?
Uh, BLT.
91.
He won.
All right, one more. So you ordered the BLT and it came with cheese?
No.
What?
No, no, they gave me a—
they gave me a jalapeño burger with extra onions.
Oh, eat a dick.
There was definitely just normal amount of onions on there.
Any onions?
Extra onions?
Yeah.
Oh, oh, ate. 8.
8.
Guess that the other day.
Oh, you guessed that the other day?
It's all good.
And you didn't get it?
No, I didn't get it.
7, remember?
Have you ever gotten it on this machine?
I have one time.
You've never gotten it on this machine? No, you haven't.
Yes, I did.
Happy birthday to Mike Florio. We don't even know if that's true. Mike Florio and Kanye West, happy birthday, buddies.
Oh, nice.
Very happy for you guys. Big 2. The big two, big two birthdays. And then Tuesday is Johnny Depp's birthday. Natalie Portman, shout out. Michael J. Fox, shout out. Josh Cribs, shout out. Eudonis Haslam, shout out.
I don't care about any of these people.
What about Florio?
Florio, I care about.
Kanye.
Portman.
Portman. Natalie Portman. Yeah.
Little Kanye. Ashley Biden, happy birthday.
Shout out.
Shout out.
Love you guys.
The New York Knicks are 2 wins away from an NBA Title and Wemby choked away game 2 and now people are asking if he lacks the clutch gene. We talk NBA Finals and the Knicks being on an all time run (00:00:00-00:24:02). Taylor Swift's seat is up for auction (00:24:02-00:36:49). Stanley Cup Final has been on crack with Vegas winning Game 2 in OT after an insane 2nd and 3rd period. NHL Combine questions are weird and we asking some. Big Cat remembers Stacey King (00:36:49-01:02:57). Who's back of the week including soccer and World Cup Fever (01:02:57-01:18:09). Brian Windhorst joins the show live from the NBA Finals to talk about the Spurs potentially getting back in the series, what makes Wemby so confident, Lebron and Giannis next year, his Mt Rushmore of NBA Finals hes covered and more (01:18:09-02:18:45). We finish with lottery ball machine.You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Netflix. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/pardon-my-take