Transcript of Who Is The ACTUAL CEO Of This Company? | Hour 1 New

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This is the Dan Lebatard Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

This episode of the Dan Lebatard Show is presented by DraftKings.

DraughtKings!

Woo!

The crown is yours.

Took them a lot to load up there to get back up.

So a little birdie told me the origins there are technically unknown. The King James Version of the Bible seems to be the first spot. Curse not the king. No, not— let me move this out of the way. No, not in thy thought. And curse not the rich in thy bedchamber, for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. Also carrier pigeons. And keep one's nose clean is to stay out of trouble, to behave, and the phrase is a metaphor for small children who don't know about politeness and manners to wipe their runny noses. That's the origin there.

Jeremy, are you comfortable telling the audience what you quote had to move away?

Oh yeah, I have a Dan Nix phrase bingo that I just made for myself as a little birthday present.

You're close to bingo.

There's been 5 so far. I'm one away. We're talking about little guys. I just need you to mention one other little guy at some point. Not Jalen Brunson. But you did say smallest guy on the court, and that one scratched off already.

Thank you for scratching the itch I had at the end of the last segment and allowing me to get back to the Knicks so that I could play the stat of the day. Start of the day. Start of the day. It is the start of the day. You guys need to take construction owner off of the video graphics. Like, I'm not a construction owner. You're going to get me in trouble with my wife.

Humble as always.

Leading from the front.

Start of the day. It is the start of the day. The graphics department can't be doing shit like that. They're going to get me in trouble at home. That's the one thing we can't do. Look, I know I don't have any control around here as the founder of Metal Ark Media, but the one thing we can't do is piss Valerie off because she's the CEO of all this shit.

She the CEO of the construction company?

All of it. She's the CEO of Dan. Yeah, your life. She's the CEO of Dan, and we need to— no, we need to not be using AI unethically. Valerie would not like that. Not to put me on a construction beam eating lunch in the 1920s. Good forearm.

Best he looked in a while. Maybe that one can stay.

Wait till the peptides kick in.

Hell yeah.

I want to put in front of you guys an assortment of stats, and you guys tell me which is the best one, okay? Because I've got a lot of them from last night. I gave you the Jalen Brunson clutch points stat, right? That's a pretty good one. You've heard it before, but it's still— he's playoff since 2023, there's been no better player in the clutch by 60 points better than the 2-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. That's from— this is from New York Knicks stats, uh, record when trailing by 14+ points in the second half of a playoff game since 2024. The rest of the NBA is 10-100. The Knicks are 6-6. So the rest of the league, when it gets down, when you talk about belief and belief growing and a fan base feeling like you can move a team, like this is what's happening at Madison Square Garden according to ESPN's tracking, ESPN Insights. The Spurs— now this is what might change, it might not be Wemby, this is what might change— the Spurs were 1 of 14 with Brunson as their primary defender in Game 1. Including 0 for 7 in the second half.

Like, that's not going to happen again. And so people will talk about Wemby and KAT and Brunson. There's no way that in the next game, experience or not experience, they're not attacking Brunson.

So you said last series that De'Aaron Fox's value was simply not turning the ball over against that team. Now, are we safe to have the conversation that this player is not the same?

Yes, he is terrible. No, but no, he's been terrible for 5 No, no, guys, he was good Game 7 against the Thunder. No, guys, this is the problem the Spurs have though. This is the problem. He was okay in Game 7. Yes, but most of the games he has played, he's missing a ton of shots and he's not healthy. I just don't know how unhealthy he is. But De'Aaron Fox, think about the pressures of this. Okay, guys, I know we talk about the stars all the time and I got more stats to get to. De'Aaron Fox is a final piece waiting for stardom and he's their only experience. Like, he's their leader for better or for worse with the basketball at the end of games. Like, in terms of don't turn the ball over here, don't do what Castle did. 21 turnovers in 2 games. The reason they beat OKC is because they replaced Castle's ball handling with De'Aaron Fox. Got in there, missed all his shots, but didn't turn the ball over. You can't do that against OKC. Here though, it's a problem. Like, you cannot have Jalen Brunson not be a liability because your point guard stinks and shouldn't be out there.

Like, that's an amazing— that's an amazing group of things that Wembanyama has behind him on the guy that was brought to be the next piece.

High ankle sprains, very bad for any kind of, uh, athleticism. Yeah, we— that's— we all understand that. But the fact remains that if you watch the games, he is like their 9th most impactful player. This is a max guy. He does not look remotely the same. He looks like late-stage Kyle Lowry.

When they have the ball, I never think, oh, you know, what's De'Aaron Fox going to do on this possession? It's Wendell Banyama, it's Kessel.

No, but if you've been watching, if you've been watching them all year, it's not like Fox looks appreciably older than their young guys when he's got his ability to move. Tony, De'Aaron Fox, look, one of the fastest players in the league. Yes. So what's happening here? Thank you. That was very efficiently said.

No, but that's— we've diagnosed him with late-stage Kyle Lowry.

Basketball is breaking its players, and the Spurs have played a lot of games, and, and here's Wemby and here's Fox, and this is what they've got. But here's the other problem that they have. Take a look at their bench scoring last night. They've been running their 5 guys into the ground. They got 1 guy scoring off the bench last night, and he was great, and he usually is, but that's a lot of minutes for the 5 guys. The, the Knicks go deeper than that. And when you're throwing De'Aaron Fox out there because you must, because you can't turn the ball over, however, it doesn't allow you to expose Jalen Brunson at all. You know what you've done? You've made the Knicks a really good defensive basketball team, and they were already pretty good with Brunson. But if he doesn't have to guard anybody, you got a problem now with everybody. Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns are gonna— and Mitchell Robinson are gonna wear down Wemby in a way that Holmgren The combination of Holmgren and Hartenstein bullshit floating butterflies like that ain't it. That ain't it. No. When Stephen A's yelling on television, he keeps saying— he said it since the Minnesota series— they've got to go after Wemby.

He's too skinny. He's too frail. He's too— you got to move him. These bodies will. Like, this ain't Chet Holmgren. These ain't afraid of you.

Cat's thick. Two Cs on it.

No. And Mitchell Robinson.

Even thicker.

Hey, oh, pause.

Hmm. Anyways, but you were talking about the bench scoring. Kelton Johnson, who won Sixth Man of the Year, who was massive in the, in the Western Conference Finals.

He's better than Jaime Jaquez.

Where was he? 8, 8 minutes, 3 points, 1-of-4 from the floor. He's— Luke Kornet is a traffic cone. Registered 1 rebound, 1 steal in 10 minutes. Didn't do a damn thing.

I've got more stats for you. Stat Muse says Jalen Brunson has now passed Shea Gildress-Alexander and Luka Dončić. In 30-point playoff games. So I had it wrong. Doncic has as many playoff games but doesn't have more, but he's got more than Shea Gildress-Alexander. What is the best of those stats? And also, people are going to be talking a lot about Brunson today. Nate Duncan NBA says most shots in an NBA Finals debut in the last 25 years, second most in the last 59 years. He was not good last night. He was good at the end. And that's what he is like. He's, he's usually good at the beginning and the end, but he's almost always good at the end.

I'm telling you, like, the game was fascinating last night because, like I said, Spurs had the lead with under 2 minutes left. Brunson had a 3-pointer and he had a floater. He had 5 points in those final 2 minutes. If Brunson doesn't make those 2 shots in the final 2 minutes, the Spurs win the game and the story is, wow, Brunson was terrible. Brunson shot terrible last night. Like, it was a fascinating game. It was a fascinating result. I think we're in store for a classic series, but I will say this, Dan, and I never do this. If the Knicks win Game 2—

Be still, my heart. Go on.

Series is over if the Knicks win Game 2, and I never do that. After 2 games?

I know what you're doing. You'll reverse jinx. I've seen it happen. No, no, no, no.

I've seen you do it.

You know what?

This Knicks team can't hurt me. I just— I— it's not the Celtics.

I— I don't feel— not if you love them.

They can hurt— I don't love them.

They'll hurt you till you love them.

But they can hurt me. If the Knicks win Game 2, they're gonna sweep the series. Dan, do you know what Game 3 at MSG— you know what the get-in price right now? I told you the other day we played this game, you were very close. You guessed the get-in price for Game 3 was $500, it was $4,200. What is the get-in price now for Game 3, Monday night, Madison Square Garden?

I don't want to overstate this. I'm trying to think. Obviously, a New York team has never played in the Super Bowl. The Yankees and Mets have played World Series games in baseball. The Rangers and Islanders have played important games there. I might say that this is the most expensive ticket in the history of New York sports because it's about to be the biggest game in the history of New York sports, because sports are bigger than they were in '73 and the last time the Knicks mattered like this. I got to think it's the most What would be more expensive than this in the history of New York sports? The idea that you might get a chance to watch a championship in your home arena, but also you might be able to go to a game where you're up 2-0 and expecting to win in your home arena.

Rangers-Knucks in '94, you know, Game 7.

Yeah, I should know this as a New Yorker.

He even adjusted for inflation. Not remotely close. And I think that That'll be the title holder for, for all time, pretty much, because look, the World Cup final is in New York, but that is also at a football stadium. You know, the scarcity at home, the scarcity, the scarcity of the ticket just won't ever get to that threshold where you're talking about a $6,000 get-in price. So that might be king of the mountain.

I checked it earlier today. I know what the tweet says from Darren Ravel. It must have been before I looked the this morning on the secondary market, $7,500 to get into MSG for Game 3.

Well, here are some of the numbers. Darren Rovell, get in price. The cheapest seat in Madison Square Garden for Game 3 is now selling for more than $6,000. Lowers are $9,000. Courtside start at $50,000. Only thing that would ever compare to this would be Stanley Cup Final in Toronto.

Would it? I think in Montreal would. Yeah, look, Toronto hasn't been in the— in even in the Stanley Cup Final in like 50 years. So yes, it would be enormous. I think it'd be bigger in Montreal, but—

Oh no, the only reason I do that is because New York's where money and fame are. And so when I talk about things being expensive, like you're talking about Wall Street can buy all of those tickets in secondary market and it's just lunacy. Like, I've got a literal hard, hot take for you guys. Literal hot take. That city's going to burn if they win. Like, there's going to be—

Go on.

It already is burned.

Like, it's going to literally burn. Like, this has not been seen in New York, uh, ever. What, what might head back there— this team, this lovable, this feeling, this fan base, this sport in that city, in that arena. They've been calling it Mecca for 50 years and ain't shit happened there for 50 years.

I don't know, I think it's a different time. I have faith that the positivity of this will outweigh what generally happens. It's not the '90s anymore either. Crime is down, I don't know if you've seen that.

Oh, I just mean joyous celebration, I'm not even talking about the city—

Oh, I thought you meant literally.

No, I do! But joyous celebration spitting into fire because I'm rubbing up against people because I'm so excited to be with my fellow New Yorkers.

Was there positivity over in PSG, or what was that?

Ah, it's not New York, come on. Summer always hits different once the big games start stacking up. Now you've got Finals games on every other night, Baseball's rolling all week, racing on the weekends, and suddenly everybody's looking for an excuse to get together. The other night, a buddy texted me, "We've got the game on, come through." I figured I'd stop by for maybe an hour. That was optimistic. Next thing you know, everybody's locked into the game and we're all part of the coaching staff. Somebody's yelling at the ref, somebody else is suddenly an expert on pitch strategy, and nobody's even pretending they're leaving early anymore. It's one of those nights where you take a sip of Miller Lite, look around, and realize, yeah, This is exactly what summer is supposed to be. That's why Miller Lite is always part of these nights for me. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink when it's hot outside, and perfect for long nights hanging with friends watching games. An all-American summer starts with an all-American beer— Miller Lite. Go to millerlite.com/dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

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Comic the Frog here, live from Metalog Media Studios here in Miami.

Stugatz!

The Germans are advancing on France in World War II.

This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugatz!

I'm literally looking at it right now. Like, I know what Ravel's tweet said. I'm looking at it right now. $7,500.

Do you guys have a vote for me on the stats I gave you? Do you have any stats better than the stats I gave you? Did you like any of these more than the others?

I've got one that doesn't require the stat-of-the-day music but I just want to send it in there—

Not answering my question in any way!

So you don't wanna give your stat though?

Well, I do want to—

I got better stats too.

But you're asking if the stats that you gave are better than the ones that I gave when I haven't given mine yet.

No no no no no! Okay. No! I asked somebody in the room: from among the stats I gave you to give me a vote on what was the best of those stats. What I clearly did not say is, Tony, give me your own riff on an ad-lib guitar because you think you're doing Benetti Tigers baseball and you've got local shit to sell. I asked you to pick one of these.

What if his is better though?

It can be. Then he cannot— he could say the best of those is these, and I have one that's better.

I'll give you your flowers first.

Got it. Okay, so not—

no, just so we're all—

I don't need my flowers. I simply need—

you're the foreman, I just hammer where you tell me. I am not a delicate flower.

I'm just telling you guys that from what it is that I put out here—

Happy birthday, Jeremy.

I want a selection from any of you on the stats that I gave because I did feel like there were some pretty good stats.

I don't remember yours.

Yeah, run them back.

I remember yours. I remember yours off the top of my head. Okay, the 30.1 is good.

Birthday to him. I don't care. Good luck, Zazz. Which of those stats was the most impressive? I can trust you to listen to the show and also remember what was said 4 minutes ago because it was so long ago. Go sit in the chair. Go sit in the chair again. Get out of here. Go sit in the chair. Get out of here. I need your bid. I need your— Paul, drive into the ground. I need your help. That may have sounded to you like I'm beating a joke into the ground. I just need your help. That's what I'm asking for here. When I go to you on that, I can't have the whole room ganged up on not listening to me 4 minutes ago because I'm rambling crazy because I own a construction company.

Man, I want that Tony stat.

It's a good stat. No one's gonna select from mine.

I told you the 34th stat was good.

I think the Knicks one where they were what, they were 6-6, everybody else was 10-100. That was interesting.

That one was all right.

The guy in the vest has us.

All right, my stat of the day is this.

Uh, better be good.

Dylan Harper, who was great last night, got taken out late in the game. That's a Mitch Johnson situation. But Dylan Harper was 13 years old when the pandemic started.

What? What?

I thought you were going to say when the Knicks were in the finals last, like, when the pandemic started, he was 13.

Yeah. I mean, so was— how old was Malachi Tony? He's in college.

He was in a manger.

Was Malachi Tony 9? Was the pandemic 12 years ago?

I think the pandemic was a good 35 years ago.

When you mentioned Dylan Harper, great last night, Mitch Johnson, there's going to be a lot of critique wherever it is the blame lies for what it is that we're presently watching. But you also, on top of the youth of the Spurs, have a coach with no experience. Now, Mike Brown was not popular. I'm going to keep saying this about the Knicks. They have a right to say these are a bunch of mismatched parts that nobody believed in. Like, the reason this feels around New York the way that it does, it's not just that it's the city loves this team more than any of the other sports in town. It's also because They feel like they've got a bunch of guys who have suffered for 4 years, they've grown attached to through the suffering with them. Bingo! And they've got an underdog story.

We're close.

Still one away.

We'll see if I do it before the end of the show, before I get to my beloved people in New York. I'll shout it from the streets.

We got suffering just now.

Malik had Tony 12 years old when the pandemic started.

I have other stats if you want them.

I'll get to yours as well. I still prefer answers to what Mine were, but 6 and 6 one. Harper, when, when you say that two guys for the Spurs looked slow last night, think about what we're saying here. De'Aaron Fox and Wembenyama, that, that's a truth I'm speaking, correct? Like, you can't prove that stuff empirically, but either tired, slow, or injured are your only choices, correct, on how they look compared to the speed of everyone else who was out there? That's an assessment normally you can't make those unless it's Tyrese Maxey. You can't make those speed distinctions quite so clearly. Hey, if the— if it's a slow guy out there, it's going to be Gobert. It's going to be Cornette. It's not going to be Wembenyama and De'Aaron Fox. But they look slow, correct?

Yeah, I think Harper looks shot out of a cannon. Stephon Castle always looks pretty solid. But you expect the guy who's one of the fastest guys in the league with the ball in his hands to, like, zoom by people. And it just didn't happen.

When you ask the question, why is Harper not in the game? You've got a coach who does not have any experience like this. A pop. And, and so I don't know whether the question or that all of these things are in play because yes, if the Spurs make a couple of shots, we're not talking about any of these things. The Spurs would have won the game. But these stats for Game 1 are exactly what the Knicks needed to happen. And also everything this postseason that the Knicks have needed to happen has happened up to and including the Spurs and Thunder playing a series that broke both of the teams. And the Thunder are a much worse matchup for the Knicks than this team is for a couple of different reasons. It's not just the experience. It's not just that. It's that Wemby, in the small sample size that we has, have, has trouble. We mentioned Mitchell Robinson and we mentioned Carl Anthony Towns. We didn't mention Anunoby. Like, Anunoby by 100 possessions is the guy who defends him best. Those are big-ass bodies. That they're throwing at a skinny young dude.

And the great part about it for the Knicks, from the Knicks perspective, is OG really didn't guard Wemby a ton, right? It was like KAT was doing such a good job on him, Mitch was giving him, you know, hell down low, where they can probably save that as another chess piece later on in the series. Because I, I rarely saw OG guarding Wemby.

He was 2 for 12 when KAT was guarding him, 4 for 9 against everybody else. But Mitchell Robinson had one of those big stops late when the Spurs were coming back. And the irony in all of this is, Dan, you brought up Cornette, like the Spurs were up 14 in the third quarter, and then they took Wemby out, and that was the moment the Knicks got their mojo back. And then late in the game, Wemby still almost led them to the win, even with looking as slow as we're talking about.

So you gave the stat of 2 for 12. I have in front of me 2 for 10 against Towns in 8 matchup minutes. And I want to now go stat for stat with you. Uh, this is from New York Knicks Stats. Prior to the game, NBA teams were 4-87 in the NBA Finals when trailing by 14+ points in the second half of the game since the '96-'97 season. Now it's 5-87. Uh, I'm gonna say again, I did not have yesterday the ability to say to anybody, hey, you're going to want to watch a basketball game for the first time in your life. Who's better, Wemby or Cat? And you're like, oh, Cat's going to beat him forever because he looks faster, he looks more graceful, he goes right by him. And that Wemby guy, man, he's tall, but he runs like all those other tall guys that I've seen throughout time where he's not actually that fast when his gift No, he's as fast as the rest of them. Like, he doesn't usually look like Porzingis.

Cement shoes on him running up and down.

He doesn't look like Manute Bol and Shawn Bradley and all these pituitary problems that we've had go 7'1" and skinny. He doesn't look like Chet Holmgren. Like, Wemby looks faster than all of them. That stat's crazy. You said you think you have better.

Even with a terrible game, Wemby is the youngest player with 25 and 10 in a Finals game since Kobe in '01. So that's just one. But speaking of young players, Dylan Harper, He's the youngest player in NBA history to score in the double digits in a Finals game, and he did it in his first 6 minutes.

He was great at the beginning. Crazy. Champagny too.

Champagny was great in the first half, and then all of a sudden every time I saw Champagny touch the ball in the second half, I was hitting the other side of the backboard. I was like, oh, where'd that brick come from?

Josh Hart.

I'm the guy laying bricks around here.

OptaStats, Josh Hart led all players in total rebounds and assists in his first career Finals game. The only other players in the shot clock era to do so are Shaq and Larry Bird.

You got you there, Dan.

Is he kicking my ass?

He's kind of kicking your ass.

Keep going. What else you got?

Jalen Brunson's clutch scoring in the playoffs is Michael Jordan level. Per Sportico, if you look at players with at least 50 clutch field goal attempts in the postseason since '97, there are 2 players who are averaging over 30 points per 36 minutes: Jalen Brunson and Michael Jordan.

I'm feeling threatened by you now and your ability to make these stats better than mine, so I have a stat that's better than all the stats. You Ready? Roy, hit it. Who made it to salad? Nope, not what I wanted, Roy. Good timing by you, but not at all what I wanted. Can we add that permanently? Start of the day.

Who made it to statlet?

It is the start of the day. Start of the day. Start of the day. It is the start of the day. You blew my joke because the stat I had was not the stat of the day sound. Get this out of here. I don't want this anymore. I thought you understood what I asked you for. This is the stat of the day. Every team guards differently, you know. I'm going to figure it out. It's, uh, yeah, I mean, I was bad tonight. It's not more complicated than that. We've been down in a series before, never in the Finals, obviously, but I'm not kicking myself about anything, really. I mean, I'm not worried the slightest. Just cut up the 'I was bad.' That's all I wanted. 'I was bad,' because that's what happened last night. The stat from last night is when he was bad. That's all I wanted. I did.

The Knicks haven't lost since Karl-Anthony Towns made a cameo in The Devil Wears Prada 2.

We're in a great mood. Was it any good?

Ask the cuck. He did see it.

That's it? That's your review? Pretty good. How was it? I'm not ashamed to say I like Devil, uh, the first one, Devil Wears Prada.

So, uh, I love the Devil Wears Prada.

So, but the second one was just okay? Yeah, it's good. It's good. But any, any other critique? Any other movie critique? Can you give us any? It's a very popular movie. I've seen it that A lot of marketing.

Yeah, Meryl Streep, good actress.

You're doing good work back there, Zez. Thank you.

That's usually what he says. He says it over—

hey, you're doing good work over there. I— I just—

last stat for you. Last night, Shohei Ohtani the hitter, 3 hits and 2 walks. Shohei Ohtani the pitcher, 2 hits and 1 walk.

You want to move me off my beloved Knicks?

He has the 3rd lowest ERA through 10 starts ever. Dan Lebatard!

But It's just his titties are sitting on the shelf that is his belly.

Stugatz. He said titties. It just like shocked me a little bit. I wasn't quite prepared for titties.

This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugatz. Sanchez had his 50-inning streak snapped last night. That guy is crazy good.

Devastating.

Crazy good. He made the Padres look so good. So dumb for— look, man, we just saw— I've told you this before, the age of mastery right now throughout sports. No left-hander ever has thrown that many, that many scoreless innings. And what that dude does is crazy. I've never seen a left-hander throw changeups to left-handers other than Glavine. Maybe John—

it's insane.

Maybe John Franco. Maybe John Franco.

He's amazing. Ohtani's amazing. Neither will come up in today's episode of the Pitch Clock.

50 scoreless innings from a left-hander. 50 and 2/3 scoreless innings from a left-hander will not come up.

No, we brought it up last week. So I actually brought in a New York correspondent, Alex Day. We talk about the Yankees, the Mets, the Red Sox, and I gave him 30 seconds to talk about the Knicks because I knew it would be good for your kink.

I want, I want to pivot to, to really celebrating New York sports because I'm still mad that ESPN took us off in New York. W-F-A-T. We were killing it in New York. We were. They took us off. Still mad about it. It was on my dad's list of his top 10. I don't have it on me. His top 10 things that we did at ESPN to piss them off. One of them that didn't mention— you know that one of them that was not mentioned in any of the 3 top 10 lists was me getting shadow suspended for a year by ESPN on PTI. No one told me that I had been suspended because I called that Brian Dennehy movie with Bobby Knight on PTI a mountain of elephant crap. It was interesting to see your list.

Be almost entirely made up of things that you said on television exclusively. I couldn't help you there.

Yeah, I, I miss right now, miss being able to just be on ESPN. I don't know that I've missed anything quite like what I'm about to tell you. To be on ESPN, to laugh at how Stephen A. and Wilbon are behaving after the game because Stephen A. is a Knicks fan and, uh, Wilbon introduced journalism to— I'm going to throw out the first pitch, I'm going to put my jersey, I'm going to tuck it in my jeans and I'm going to throw out the first pitch at a Cubs game. Uh, Knicks fans hate Stephen A. Smith and he's going to be their voice on television throughout this run. And I mean, I, I imagine he should be or will want to be somewhere in the parade as As the king of New York City? No, but he's moved down here now. He lives, he lives here in, in Miami. So you see what's happening. The king of New York is coming to Miami and I'm going to New York.

Doing a swap. That's the next level for Zazz.

Speaking of, can we get him back in the normal chair?

Yeah, that's enough watching. Come on back.

All right, come on back, Zazz. That's enough of a punishment. Thank you for all your good work back there. It's a good— it's just a terrible phrase to use around everything that we're talking about. Like, just for the audio audience that just is imagining Zazz in a cuck chair but can't see any of what it is that we're doing. Thank you for all your good work back there during you ostensibly watching sex is probably not the phrase I want to keep using.

My wife will enjoy the show today when we watch back the highlights for sure. Won't be offended by that at all.

Uh, can you guys— I, I didn't think that we got an answer to this poll the other day cuz Zazz disagrees with me on this. Do you guys feel like you know what America's rooting for in this series? If you say a majority of America, I know we're divided about just about everything, but probably the Golden Knights. Is it possible for America to find a New York sports team sweet? Is it possible?

Yes. Yeah, I think, I think they're rooting for— there have been instances like America was definitely rooting for the Giants in '07 against the Patriots, like for sure.

Yeah, but look at what they were playing against.

2001, the World Series, definitely.

Yeah, and it's not like that was a hated team they were playing against in Arizona. Definitely rooting for the Yankees there. I would say America was probably rooting for the Rangers in '94.

Were all of those— let me see, were any of those teams underdogs? Like, just not just underdogs, not favored, no, but a bunch of discarded parts?

And I gotta look up Canucks, Rangers.

Rangers had home ice advantage, so they were the favorite, I'm sure.

So if I were to ask you guys to try and break this down, and however it is you imagine that New York is falling in love with this basketball team, the way that people fall in love with their best sports stories that they hand down to their kids and now the whole family loves sports forever because you felt something you've never felt before. What do you think are the connection points on this team beyond the winning between the city and the players to turn Mecca into something, you know, what they've been wanting to be Mecca for a long time that all of us have laughed at? You drop confetti from the ceiling when Carmelo won a playoff game down 3-0 in the first round against the Heat because we've been laughing at Mecca for 25 years. What are the connection points? What would— is the number one after winning, The number one connection point between Citi and this basketball team— is it that they just love the Knicks? Is it that the arena's actually in New York City? Is it that they've been laughed at for 25 years? Is it that they love basketball more than they love the other sports?

The way that it's been explained to me from a New York fan is every other sport in New York has two teams. And so you're splitting the New York fan when the Knicks, it's just the Knicks. So everyone who's a basketball fan is a Knicks fan.

There is only one thing that can ruin this and these vibes, and we will find out on Game 3 when it's sitting courtside.

Oh no, I just saw the odds. There are odds as to whether or not he, the president, will be booed.

Oh, of course.

No, of course he's going to be booed. Well, there are, of course. No, but of course he's going to be booed. He won't be courtside. This is just my take.

He'll be in a box.

It's a terrible decision for him to decide to go to this game. Of course he's going to be booed.

And now I've been in that building before when he's been in attendance, and it was a mixed reaction, but it was from the famously apolitical UFC organization.

This is basketball. I'm not even doing this because it's New York, although I could do it there. It's basketball. It's the black sport.

Like, was Naismith Black?

I wanted to ask an expert though. I did. I— how do— how do you guys—

the logo is white. I mean, you could say they took their stuff, Danny.

It might be on the bingo card. I'm trying to avoid the bingo card.

Can you please say that they took their stuff?

No, I'm not. Don't try it. You guys are going to try and entrap me, and I'm not— I'm not— that bingo will not be completed today. How many? Let me see. What have I hit so far? Tell me what I've hit.

Okay, so thus far you've hit Larry Johnson, Suffering. Smallest guy on the court. Broken bodies.

27 years!

The weight of MSG. And of course acknowledging your own fandom. I have a couple of rows here that are almost done, but you haven't interrupted someone by saying, "Guys, Wemby is here!" So that's right here.

Don't tell me what they are.

Well, he's not gonna say that.

You're not gonna say it because he didn't play well.

So we have— how many do you need for a bingo?

I mean, there's a couple of different slots where I need one. There's two that I could see happening organically. I'm not going to tell you anything.

No, no, that's fine. But let's see if— do we have a good sound to go with this that will surprise the audience as like something later in the show before I go to New York?

Yeah, we'll all just yell bingo.

Okay, the question I would like to ask an analyst, and I don't know that we have the expertise in this room to answer what I'm about to say, What do the Spurs need to do to stop Towns from pulling Wemby away from the basket? Like Charles Barkley was saying on television last night— this is after Game 1, and I don't usually love some of Charles's analysis— but he was saying to everybody on the set, guys, Wemby's not going to be able to do in this series what you think he's going to be able to do. Like, that what we just saw Karl-Anthony Towns do to him is because Karl-Anthony Towns is a seasoned player, seasoned by Jimmy Butler and a bunch of suffering. This particular player has a skill set that is really unique for Wemby to handle. It's, it's among the only ones like this in the history of the sport that can give him a problem and also neutralize how good the Spurs are at defense. Because I didn't think the Knicks were missing shots because the Spurs were good at defense last night. I thought that that factor, that Wemby's getting pulled away from the basket, is the reason that you end up having the Knicks Bucks come back in that game with Towns, and then I'm going to say this again, Zazz, 18 minutes left in the game, the Spurs were leading at halftime and had 55 points, they finished with 95.

They had 55 at the half and they finished with 95. The last 18 minutes of deciding time, they scored nothing in the modern offensive NBA. Now when it gets dragged into playoff basketball, in the modern offensive NBA 30 points in the last 18 minutes of a basketball game is asinine.

I know during this Knicks run, which is now 12 in a row, people like to point at Karl-Anthony Towns and they're running the offense through him and, and he's, he's the center hub for what they're doing there. It's really been the other side of the floor for that. Like, it's— you go look at the defensive numbers for the Knicks this entire postseason. I mean, there are, there are a bunch of games they're holding teams to under 100. Like, that has nothing to do with it.

They are often great. They are often a top 5 defense. OKC and the Spurs were the other top 5 defenses. But answer my question. And find me an analyst who can answer my question. And how do you stop the remainder of this series from Towns pulling Wemby away from the basket?

He— I'm surprised he wasn't guarding the whole game, but I was surprised at how much Wemba Nyama was guarding Karl-Anthony Towns because you go back to like they specifically and I guess this is something you could look at Mitch Johnson about because they specifically don't want Wemba Nyama guarding Karl-Anthony Towns. You look at the series against Oklahoma City, He guarded Alex Caruso the entire series, and it's essentially because, okay, he could veer off the guy who's just gonna chill in the corner the entire offensive possession, and he could also attack the paint, and he recovers quick enough that he can get to the corner.

You guys are expecting a bounce back in game 2, 3, and 4, but Barkley saying on television, how are you going to stop that from happening? Because he was just saying to Shaq and Ernie and Kenny, he's saying you can't stop that.

He's not going to guard Towns. That's how they're going to stop it. He's not going to guard him.

And Mitch Johnson doesn't really like to explore the 2-big lineup with him and Cornette because obviously Cornet's a traffic cone. But I think you got him—

Cornet was a disaster last year.

He was terrible. He gave him absolutely nothing. But you look at Kelton Johnson, who can play big as far as defensively. You look at Carter Bryan, who's a bigger guy too. The flaw with this Spurs team is because they built it through Victor Wembenyama is they don't really have any other bigs outside of Luke that can guard fleet-of-foot big men, right? Like, you have Bismack Biyombo, who's a statue. You have Mason Plumlee, who doesn't play. You have Kelly Olynyk, who doesn't play. Like, who else can you trot out there to guard if Kelton Johnson's playing 8 minutes and Carter Bryan's playing 6?

No, it'll have to be Cornet. Chet. And I, I don't think you're gonna see Wemby on Towns very much at all game 2.

They started the game with him on Josh Hart, and I anticipate that they'll do the same thing. The advantage that they had when they were playing the Thunder is Wemby was disciplined and not drifting out to 3. Why? Because Chet wasn't taking the 3s. Karl-Anthony Towns will. And I think in the same way that the Knicks are almost daring Wemby, hey, you go get yours, we just can't let you get everyone else going. The Spurs need to do the same thing with KAT. KAT, if you drop 30, we're okay with it. We can't let you be the facilitator the way that you've been.

I worry if I'm the Spurs about the skill set that Karl-Anthony Towns has here, Zez. And I— all of these games are going to be different. People are going to end up preparing over the course of the series. But the Knicks are here to take the Spurs stuff.

Bingo!