00:00Well, how'd the Knicks grade out for the series after they brought the broom down to Philadelphia
00:05and swept the Sixers?
00:07You know him as Steph Bondi, our Knicks beat writer for The Post.
00:10Well, today we're going to do a little role playing.
00:12He's Professor Bondi handing out his grades for the semifinals.
00:18SBU, Steph Bondi University, let's get straight into this one, man.
00:22We need your grades and why.
00:24First one we'll start off with.
00:26It's one of the students we talk about a lot.
00:29That's Carl Anthony Towns.
00:31What grades do you have for him?
00:33All right, well, we're talking about just the Philly series, right?
00:37Just the Philly series.
00:39I mean, listen, I get to be everybody's favorite teacher
00:44because I'm just going to hand out a bunch of A's.
00:47Listen, the whole team was just dominant, and Carl Anthony Towns was part of that.
00:53Unfortunately, we're starting out with the one guy I'm probably going to give the lowest grade to
00:57simply because of his foul trouble.
00:59He couldn't stay out of foul trouble.
01:01So I'm going to give Carl Anthony Towns a B+.
01:04He was a tremendous passer throughout the series.
01:07They were using him in that role, that facilitator role, that playmaking role that we saw at the end of
01:12the Atlanta Hawks series.
01:13The one problem is he just couldn't stay out of foul trouble.
01:16So B+.
01:18Jalen Brunson averaged around 29 points, six assists, three rebounds per game in the semifinals.
01:25He was captain clutch again and pretty much dominated the 76ers.
01:29I think I already know what grades you're going to give out here, but we need to hear it from
01:33your mouth.
01:34Yeah, A.
01:35A.
01:36A+.
01:36Let's just give him an A+.
01:37I mean, he did everything he needed to do.
01:40He didn't, you know, we didn't see, we saw a lot of facilitating from him.
01:44We saw a lot of deferring because he didn't need to be the guy all the time.
01:49But when he needed to be the guy and when you asked for captain clutch and when you needed a
01:53big bucket,
01:54you could go to jail and Brunson.
01:55And the way that he crossed up Dominic Barlow yesterday was one of the best highlights that I've seen
02:01after he hit that reverse layup and then Deuce got the steal and then it led to a Brunson three
02:10-pointer from the corner.
02:12Five points for Brunson in five seconds.
02:15And to me, that was still midway through the third quarter, but that was the nail in the coffin.
02:19That's how much of a blowout that was yesterday.
02:22A-plus for Jalen Brunson.
02:24All right.
02:24Here's a dude that I'm going to go full Geno Smith with.
02:28They wrote him off, but he ain't right back, though.
02:30Well, Mikael Bridges was absolutely on fire as a two-way player.
02:34What grade do you give him?
02:36A-plus.
02:37I mean, we're talking about defense.
02:40And I started this season saying, I mean, started this series saying that Mikael Bridges didn't need to have a
02:48dominant offensive series
02:50for the Knicks to win this game, but they needed his defense against Tyrese Maxey, and he shut him down.
02:56I mean, listen, I understand Tyrese Maxey wasn't as aggressive as he should have been.
03:00Tyrese Maxey deferred too much to Joel Embiid.
03:03But part of that was just Mikael was just locking him up.
03:07I mean, you know, so Mikael Bridges did his job.
03:10He was also very efficient offensively.
03:14You know, we talked about his struggles all regular season and then at the very beginning of the Atlanta Hawks
03:19series.
03:19But he's found his groove at the right time.
03:22A-plus for Mikael Bridges.
03:23Next guy, his name is Deuce, but he was hitting a lot of trades, especially game four.
03:29Seven from nine for the three-point line.
03:31Finished that game with 25 points.
03:33Deuce McBride stepped up with OG and Inobi being down those two games with the hamstring.
03:39I got it.
03:40What grade do you have for Deuce?
03:42Well, I mean, listen, just yesterday it's an A-plus.
03:45But if I'm taking the whole series into consideration, I got to give him a B.
03:49You know, in that first game that OG and Inobi missed, I'm talking about game three, Deuce couldn't hit a
03:55shot.
03:55And so the Knicks had to go somewhere else for his minutes.
03:59Landry Schammett stepped up in that situation.
04:01So good closeout game for Deuce McBride.
04:06A great closeout game, I should say.
04:08But if I'm taking the series in totality, it's a B for Deuce McBride.
04:12Can't wait to hear you on this one.
04:14Mitchell Robinson.
04:17I mean, posters, mugs, whatever it is.
04:21That shot of him dunking on Joel Embiid should be hung up at the Louvre.
04:25I said that right, right?
04:26The Louvre?
04:27The Louvre?
04:27Yeah.
04:28All right, I said that right.
04:29Say it with my chest.
04:29Yes, Mitchell Robinson's great, please.
04:33Yeah, A.
04:34And I understand why it's hard to pronounce Louvre because the spelling doesn't make any sense.
04:39There's an R in there or something.
04:41Yeah.
04:42So I feel you.
04:43I understand.
04:44Listen, he hit.
04:47They did hack a Mitch.
04:48They weren't able to really utilize that as much as they wanted to because Mitch hit his foul shots.
04:54And the whole thing with Mitch was how you're going to handle physical Embiid because Carl Anthony Towns was in
04:59foul trouble.
04:59All throughout this series.
05:01So they needed a heavy dose of Mitchell Robinson being physical and taking on that defensive assignment of Joel Embiid.
05:08And he did his thing.
05:10There's not a stronger, bigger player on the Knicks than Mitchell Robinson.
05:14You know, maybe OG Ananobi is as strong, but he's certainly not as big as Mitchell Robinson.
05:18So they needed him.
05:20They needed him to fluster and kind of take Joel Embiid out of his game.
05:25And Mitchell Robinson did a heck of a job.
05:27He hit the free throws when he needed to.
05:29And he had, like you said, that big poster dunk, which was kind of like revenge after two years prior
05:35when Joel Embiid dragged down Mitchell Robinson.
05:37It was really a dirty play.
05:39So A for Mitchell Robinson.
05:41All right.
05:41We talked about the Justin Timberlakes, the Beyonce's, and the Jada Kisses.
05:45Now let's talk about the rest of the people from NSYNC, Destiny's Child, and the Locks, the other guys on
05:51the bench.
05:52Landry Schammett, Jose Alvarado, Mo Diora, Jordan Clarkson, and Crew.
05:57What grade do you have for these guys?
05:59Yeah.
06:00If we take out the garbage time yesterday, they won all their minutes.
06:06I said this before, and I wrote an article about it.
06:09The Knicks probably have the deepest – maybe Detroit is the only team that can compete with them in the
06:15East right now.
06:16But they have one of the deepest bench, if not the deepest benches, in the Eastern Conference.
06:21And they flexed that in the first two rounds.
06:24They had a better bench than Atlanta.
06:26They had a better bench than Philadelphia.
06:28Philadelphia, and even when a guy like we said before, when Deuce McBride has not hit his shots in game
06:33three,
06:34you go to – you just dust off Landry Schammett.
06:36He's able to come through like he came through in the regular season.
06:39Jose Alvarado hit his shots.
06:41We already talked about Mitchell Robinson coming off the bench, so an A for the bench.
06:46It's a coach and a coaching staff that has been under a microscope throughout the course of a season.
06:54And even a lot of people were like – it felt like the city was on fire when they lost
06:58back-to-back games in the first series.
07:00But Mike Brown and this Knicks coaching staff, what grade do you have for these guys?
07:06A-plus.
07:08They came in after that, trailing 2-1 to the Atlanta Hawks.
07:13And, listen, I was one of the people saying this – you can't lose that game, the next game, that
07:17game four,
07:17because then you're down 3-1 in Atlanta.
07:19Make a drastic change.
07:22Put Deuce McBride in the starting lineup over Mikael Bridges, who couldn't hit a shot.
07:25He went another direction.
07:27He decided to, you know, at the help of his – especially Chris Gent, their offensive coordinator,
07:33to start involving Cat more at the elbow.
07:35So, that unlocked a whole new weapon to this offense that we didn't see at all in the regular season.
07:42And when you look at it in retrospect, it's kind of like, you know, it's good they waited this long
07:47because it's catching a lot of these other teams by surprise.
07:49They don't know how to deal with it.
07:51This offense has been just – I mean, it's on another level these days.
07:56That's a credit to the coach for making that adjustment.
07:59The defense has been tremendous as well.
08:02Everybody seems to have bought into the sacrifice that's needed.
08:06And, you know, I've said this before, and I was kind of skeptical in the beginning
08:11how much this collaborative effort will work because the big reason he was hired
08:16was to listen to other voices that Tom Thibodeau wouldn't listen to.
08:21And he's leaning on those guys, and they've provided not just the coaches,
08:25but the players as well.
08:27And they've provided really the blueprint for how the Knicks could, you know,
08:32could reach this level that they're at right now.
08:34And that's a credit to Mike Brown for listening to those guys and deciding which one is the right one
08:39to use.
08:39And it's working wonders right now through the second round.
08:43A-plus for Mike Brown.
08:44All right, Professor Bondi, I need the syllabus and the study guide for next round.
08:49Let's look ahead to the potential Eastern Conference final matchup.
08:52Which of these teams is the better matchup for the Knicks and why, Cleveland or Detroit?
08:59I think it's Cleveland.
09:01Detroit brings an element of this is personal, bro.
09:05And what I mean by that is they're still hung up on what happened last year.
09:10They got an ax to grind against the Knicks.
09:13We saw that in the regular season.
09:15When they see that other, you know, New York on the other side, they take it up a notch.
09:20And I get it.
09:21Maybe if they make the conference finals, I'm talking about the Detroit Pistons,
09:25then they'll kind of get that edge off and be like, all right, we made it.
09:28And maybe they lose that edge.
09:29I don't know.
09:29I don't know how they're wired internally like that.
09:32But I've seen them in the regular season.
09:34And it is personal with the Knicks.
09:37And they can get physical with Isaiah Stewart.
09:40Jalen Dern is a big body.
09:42And then Cade Cunningham, you know, might have been the best player in the Eastern Conference this year.
09:47So, on the flip side, Cleveland, you have two guys that are kind of soft in the middle.
09:53I'm talking about Evan Mobley and Jared Allen.
09:56And then you have a historical playoff choker in James Harden.
09:59I'd rather deal with that than deal with the Detroit Pistons.
10:03So, if I had my druthers, if I'm the Knicks, it would be the Cleveland Cavaliers as my Eastern Conference
10:09finals opponent.
10:10All right, word is Bondi.
10:11Wrap up the semifinals.
10:14Your final thoughts as we get ready for the Eastern Conference finals.
10:18I was right.
10:19I told everybody.
10:20I said the Sixers are going to roll over.
10:22They stink.
10:24So, listen, even weeks ago, even during an article in a post, and if you want, I'll bring the receipts
10:30on Twitter or something.
10:32They asked me to lay out who I would pick as the easiest opponent for the Knicks in the Eastern
10:38Conference.
10:38This was before the playoffs started, weeks before the playoffs started.
10:41And I picked the 76ers.
10:44They just weren't – they're not built like a playoff team physically.
10:47Like, everybody's like they can just get their talent together and it'll click.
10:51It doesn't work like that.
10:53If you have a beat-up player like Joel Embiid, an older player like Paul George who's been through the
10:59wars, you can't just turn on a switch.
11:03Physically, it's too wearing, and we saw that.
11:06They just weren't equipped to compete with the Knicks at all on multiple levels.
11:12So, you know, I think the Knicks benefited a lot from the level of opponent they faced in that second
11:18round, and they did their thing.
11:20I mean, they – you know, they're knocking out their opponents in elimination games like Mike Tyson in his prime.
11:26They did it in Atlanta where they just destroyed the Hawks in that game six when they had to eliminate
11:31them, and they did it last night.
11:33They don't let their foot off the gas.
11:36They don't let their foot off the throat.
11:38So, you know, we're seeing a good killer instinct from the Knicks, especially in elimination games.
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