- 1 hour ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:0025 lead changes is what we saw tonight. That's the most in the playoff game in 13 years.
00:05The Knicks were able to pull off game 2, 108-102.
00:09Steph Bondi, Brandon London here.
00:11You would think in a game where Mitchell Robinson and Joel Embiid was out,
00:15that would be the major storyline coming out of this game.
00:18But no, OG and Anobi left with around, what, 2 minutes and 31 seconds left in the game.
00:24You asked Mike Brown, he kind of dodged around that question.
00:26You went into the locker room. Can you tell us or give us any sort of update on the OG
00:31injury?
00:32There is no update yet. And if you've watched the replay, you know, listen, I'm not a doctor.
00:37He came up kind of lame, you know, walking, you know, running down the court.
00:43And he does have hamstring issues in the past. That could be the problem.
00:48We don't know yet. But we did talk to a few players about it, including Myles McBride,
00:53who was the person who closed down the stretch for Anobi when Anobi was subbed out.
00:58And he was like, listen, if that's the case, you know, I got to step it up.
01:02Other players have to step it up because you can't make up for OG Anobi with one person.
01:08He has been, talking about OG, he has been the best player in the playoffs so far for the Knicks.
01:13So losing him would be a major blow.
01:15We'll talk about Mikael Bridges and how he stepped up.
01:18He could be that player. We'll get to him a little bit later.
01:21But another major storyline again.
01:23And the reason why, if I was watching at home, I'd probably turn the TV off.
01:27And that was the fouls. 43 total fouls called.
01:31Mike Brown talked about the big discrepancy in the 76ers shooting 62 free throws
01:37compared to the Knicks' 42 in these two games.
01:41Is it getting out of hand, Steph?
01:42Hey, nobody wants to watch the refs.
01:44You want to turn on TV and watch a bunch of free throws?
01:46Nobody wants to see that.
01:48And listen, some of them were ticky-tack.
01:51Some of them you questioned, like, why would he call this and not call that.
01:55Mike Brown has made it a point not to complain about the officiator.
01:58But today he came out and he was kind of complaining.
02:01He was, like, passive-aggressively, like, these were the discrepancy in the fouls.
02:04I'm not saying it's their fault, but, you know what I mean, you know what he was doing.
02:07Didn't want that fine.
02:08Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:08He didn't want that fine.
02:09And I think, you know, he's been told to kind of be the opposite of how Tom Thibodeau both dealt
02:14with the refs
02:15and talked about the refs through the media.
02:18So we've seen some of that there.
02:21But, yeah, I mean, Cat had serious foul problems to the point where he was benched for most of the
02:27first half.
02:29And, you know, the Knicks had to gut this one out.
02:32It was ugly, but they won.
02:34Cat, 27 minutes on the night, 20 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists.
02:40They had no answer for him, whether it was Andre Drummond or Paul George.
02:47The 76ers really could have used Joel Embiid in this game on the defensive side of things.
02:52A little bit.
02:52See, the difference is when Joel's in there, the Knicks, as they should, as you saw in game one,
02:57they're just going to attack him in the pick and rolls with Jalen Brunson
02:59because Joel Embiid just drops back, and it's like easy money for Jalen Brunson if he gets that switch.
03:06Andre Drummond and Bona, they're kind of more mobile.
03:10They can move, and so the Knicks switched it up.
03:14You saw at the start of the third quarter, they started running the offense through Cat.
03:19And it worked wonders.
03:20He did a great job in that third quarter.
03:22And then down the stretch, who did they go to?
03:24Mr. Closer, Captain Clutch, Jalen Brunson.
03:27So, you know, it was a good formula for victory.
03:31And the Knicks, I'll tell you what, you watch those two losses against the Hawks in the first round.
03:36They crumbled down the stretch of those games.
03:38They lost clutch games.
03:40That has not been this team's identity.
03:43The reason why they won that first round series is they just obliterated them the rest of the game.
03:47This was their first playoff victory where it was a close game.
03:51So they kind of rediscovered that clutch identity, and they're going to need that to advance further.
03:56And a lot of that was because of the clutch defense towards the end of the game.
04:02Philly went 5 minutes, 19 seconds without scoring a point, and they had one field goal in the final seven
04:09minutes.
04:09I got that from your tweet.
04:12I mean, the Knicks, they've been up and down when it comes to their defense throughout the course of this
04:17season.
04:18How are they able to close that out and put on a defensive masterpiece like that towards the end?
04:23Now, did we talk about Mikael Bridges here?
04:25Let's get into it.
04:26Let's get into it.
04:27I mean, he was a big part of that.
04:28And you talk about kind of a clutch performer.
04:31He struggled in the first round, no question about it.
04:33He had that big game six.
04:35But other than that, he really struggled against the Atlanta Hawks.
04:38He's had two really good games against the 76ers, and he had a tremendous second half
04:43and a tremendous defensive fourth quarter because he was charged with dealing with Tyrese Maxey.
04:49And he helped shut them down now.
04:51So he's been great at the point of attack.
04:53So you've got to give Mikael Bridges a lot of credit for that.
04:56And, you know, defense is – what do they say?
04:58Defense wins championships.
05:00So, you know, to hold a team to only 12 points in the fourth quarter, that's a winning formula.
05:04All right, word is bondy before we wrap things up.
05:07I guess put a final bow on game two and kind of give us a little – short little look
05:12ahead to game three.
05:14What's the results of OG and Anobi's MRI, whatever he's going to have?
05:18That's what I'm looking forward to.
05:20He's been – we don't have to go through it again.
05:22He's been tremendous for them.
05:23If he's not available, and we'll have to see, if he's not available,
05:27it kind of changed a little bit of the dimensions there.
05:30You watched the show, Martin, growing up?
05:31I did a little bit sometimes.
05:32It's time to gas up the pacer and get down to Philly.
05:35You can hop on 95 or get on the Amtrak.
05:38Knicks fans are going to be ready to take over the city of brotherly love.
05:42For Steph Bondy, I'm Brandon London.
05:43That's your New York Post game report.
05:45And I was a bigger fan of the Fresh Prince, who's also Philly.
05:48Oh, yeah.
05:48There you go.
05:49Yeah, there you go, right there.
05:50All right, Tim, let's get your major takeaways from this game.
05:53Obviously, we've got to talk about OG and Anobi.
05:56Let's say he is to miss game three.
05:58How is that going to affect the Knicks?
05:59It's a massive loss if OG can't play.
06:02I think he's arguably been the best player on the Knicks in the playoffs.
06:06Thought he was fantastic again tonight.
06:07He's really the one guy the Sixers don't have an answer for.
06:11Obviously, Jalen Brunson had some huge shots down the stretch,
06:14but the Sixers don't have a guy on the wing with the size and the strength to handle OG.
06:20And when Joel Embiid is back, which I think he will be back for game three,
06:25OG is big enough to switch on to him and guard him in the post, right?
06:28Like, he can guard anybody on the court.
06:30I voted for him first team all defense this year.
06:32So, certainly, if he's not able to go, that is a massive monkey wrench in this series for the Knicks.
06:39And it makes it all the more important that they got this win tonight at home against the Sixers.
06:46Because if they let this one get away, which was a toss-up game like it was for Philly in
06:49game two in Boston,
06:51they were able to hang on and get the win that Boston couldn't take that 2-0 lead.
06:57If they don't have OG in the next couple of games, this could easily be 2-2 coming back here
07:01for game five.
07:01We always talk about the next man up.
07:03The next man up would be Deuce McBride, but they kind of got a starter right now
07:07that's kind of stepped his game up this series, and that's Mikael Bridges.
07:11You heard Mike Brown kind of give him some praise.
07:14You heard Jalen Brunson kind of talk about how he's never switched up his routine,
07:19whether it's, you know, he's at a high or he's at a low.
07:23What has made him so effective on both ends of the court in these two games?
07:28I mean, to me it always comes back to Mikael to shot-making and aggression on offense.
07:33When he's making his shots on offense like a lot of players, his defense is better,
07:38he's more into the game, he feels like he's part of the flow.
07:41When his shots aren't falling, then he tends to drift, he doesn't really get involved,
07:45feels like he's kind of just out there trying to take up space, right?
07:49So for him, making shots like he has these first couple games,
07:52obviously everybody on the Knicks couldn't miss in game one,
07:54but he hit that one of the big shots of the game.
07:56There was that loose ball, banged around, he got that open shot on the wing,
08:00knocked it down, put the Knicks back up six.
08:02That was really at that point I thought the game was over,
08:05and him making shots leads to everything else.
08:08And, yeah, like, again, to go back to OG, if he has to miss any time,
08:12Mikael Bridges has got to be really good on Paul George
08:14and the other perimeter players for the Sixers.
08:16Another major storyline coming out of this game,
08:18and what everyone was talking about at home and on Twitter
08:21is all these damn fouls that they are calling.
08:26Do you feel like Commissioner Adam Silver needs to step in?
08:29Like, how can we neutralize that?
08:31Because I feel like it's taking away from the product of some really good playoff basketball.
08:36I mean, look, the rest were kind of all over the place, I thought, at times in this game.
08:40However, the Knicks in particular were just committing a lot of fouls.
08:42Like, Carl Towns likes to commit fouls sometimes.
08:45And he was committing fouls.
08:47And the Knicks were playing very aggressively, which I didn't think was bad.
08:50But if you're playing aggressively and they're calling it tight,
08:52they're going to call a lot of fouls.
08:53And that's what they did.
08:54And I will be interested if Joel Embiid is back for game three,
08:58the Knicks were content to have Carl Towns guard him in game one.
09:01And he got two fouls in about three minutes.
09:03Tonight he had two fouls in the first quarter again.
09:05Like, Cad's got a giant advantage in this series whenever Joel's out on the court.
09:09And we've seen him in foul trouble in both games.
09:12Obviously, game one it didn't matter.
09:13But if this is a close game late and Cat's in foul trouble,
09:16that could have a big impact on New York's offense
09:19because they're doing so much with him and he has been so effective.
09:22So I think he in particular just needs to keep his hands back
09:24and not get himself into bad spots.
09:27But, look, at the end of the day,
09:29the game's going to be called the way it's going to be called.
09:30And the Knicks have guys who are good at getting the line.
09:33And certainly if there's a lot of fouls,
09:34it's not going to be the worst thing for them to be in the penalty
09:36and Jalen Brunson to get some free throws.
09:38Final thoughts as we wrap up game two
09:40and we get ready to head down to Philly for games three and four.
09:43I'm just really, to me, it all comes down to the injuries.
09:46You know, can Joel Embiid come back and be good in game three?
09:49I expect him to play.
09:50We'll see if he does.
09:51And this OG thing just looms really large over the series.
09:55When you see a guy pull up with what looked like a hamstring injury
09:58and have to leave the game in live action,
10:01that's usually a decent amount of time on the sidelines.
10:04And that really could shift things very dramatically in Philly's direction
10:09if he's not available.
10:10Now, hopefully he's fine and he comes back in game three and it's all good.
10:13But he's been so good and so impactful for the Knicks.
10:16His ability at both ends is really the key, I think,
10:19to them being in control of the series.
10:21I mean, tonight he had 24 points.
10:23He was team high plus 12.
10:24He's been awesome.
10:26So his absence could really loom large if he's not able to go going forward.
10:30Our New York Post sports columnist Mike Vaccaro wrote that it was feeling like
10:34Knicks fans were waiting for that inevitable shoe to drop.
10:39Hopefully that's not the shoe to drop.
10:40Hopefully not.
10:41Hopefully for OG's sake and playing the best ball of his career,
10:44hopefully he's good to go.
10:44Tim, thanks for your time, man.
10:46Sure, man.
Comments