00:00Do you believe, J.Y., that your New York Knicks could win the NBA championship?
00:08Big Sills, it's always a pleasure to be on with you, my brother.
00:11Listen, I mean, first things first, Ricky Henderson is now Barry Botz.
00:17I just switched my spot in the lineup.
00:19Usually I hit leadoff, now I'm hitting cleanup, so now the pressure is on me today.
00:24But I will say this, it all depends on what New York team shows up.
00:31If it's the team that plays right now, the best chance they get, Big Sills,
00:36is what they've used to their advantage in the Philadelphia series and so far Cleveland series.
00:43It's rest. It's get their series over with.
00:47Hope that OKC and the Spurs drag the six or seven games and play the rest game and hope that
00:56that helps you.
00:58Also, you got to look at, there's injuries on both sides, right?
01:03Jalen Williams does not play last night.
01:05De'Aaron Fox re-rolls his angle, comes back.
01:08Dylan Harper banged up.
01:10So, to me, if the Knicks get the series over with with Cleveland, quickly, yes, they have a chance.
01:17But let's be honest, Big Sills, they're going to be decisive underdogs in either series should they come out of
01:24the East.
01:26Can Cleveland get back in this?
01:29Big Sills, I don't know.
01:33And I thought this was going to go six or less.
01:35I just think game one may have taken everything out of them.
01:38You know, I hear this like this crazy thoughts.
01:42I was like, you know, it's the thought that the series doesn't start until the road team wins.
01:51Well, Cleveland don't win games on the road.
01:54So, to me, they may have shot themselves in the foot.
01:59Now, I think what you have is, like I said, the Knicks have a rest advantage.
02:02The Knicks have more depth.
02:04And it's the maturation, or I shouldn't say that, the evolution of the Knicks offense, as you and I talked
02:13right before game three,
02:14and I said they had to go through Cat, has completely flipped this team offensively.
02:20And it's interesting.
02:21If you look at game one and game two, the Knicks beat you in two different ways.
02:26Game number one, they ran some action against James Harden on Brunson.
02:33Brunson takes some one-on-one, goes nuclear in the fourth quarter in overtime.
02:38Game number two, they send a second body.
02:41Brunson smartly only takes six shots in the first half, and he becomes a distributor.
02:46And then what they do is, if they send a double team, Cleveland kind of plays like a zone, kind
02:53of.
02:53And the Knicks will loop someone into the middle of the foul line, and then let them be the distributor.
02:59So, to me, the Knicks have just been one step ahead of Cleveland.
03:03Cleveland must shoot the ball well in game three.
03:07They have not, as of yet.
03:09And they need both Harden and Donovan Mitchell to step up.
03:13But they also can't have Evan Mobley score 14 points in game two in the first half, and not take
03:19a shot in the second.
03:22Has the difference with the Knicks been the fact that Carl Anthony Towns has accepted a role that's different than
03:28what?
03:28You know, a lot of people thought, and as Oakley said, too, you know, he was told that he couldn't
03:33do a lot of things.
03:34His play, has that elevated that team, in your opinion?
03:38Well, listen, Big Sills, when they traded for Cat, and then they got Mike Brown, I imagine how Mike Brown
03:47used DeModis Sabonis in Sacramento.
03:49Or the way that, when Mike Brown being assistant, how Draymond Green was used in Golden State.
03:56And that pinch post, which is the elbow area, for people who don't know, or the top of the key,
04:02and what they call the hub, the center of the offense.
04:05But they didn't do that, and I was wondering, well, that's why we brought Mike Brown here in the first
04:12place, just because of that.
04:13To me, it's not about Cat adjusting.
04:19It's about Brunson adjusting.
04:23And I think that has made the Knicks more dangerous, Big Sills with now, because he's now off the ball.
04:29You run him off action.
04:31You see this play that we call it, you know, we call it a flex screen, where you'll see Brunson
04:36passes at the top of the key to Cat.
04:38He'll cut down the middle lane.
04:39He'll veer off to the corner, set a screen for Ananobi.
04:43Ananobi cuts.
04:44And you're now trying to create, like, confusion, right?
04:50You send two to Ananobi.
04:51Here comes Brunson on the run, where you can't load up.
04:54You send two to Brunson.
04:56Ananobi gets a backdoor cut dunk.
04:58So, to me, it's more about Cat taking on more, but Brunson taking on less on-ball responsibilities, which has
05:07made the Knicks more dangerous offensively, because now you have to think about everyone.
05:11And let's not shout out really quick.
05:13Another Villanova guy, Mikel Bridges has been really good.
05:17They've wanted to run this guy out of town.
05:20And after Game 3 against Atlanta, he has been scary good.
05:27And he hit two humongous threes in the last two minutes of that Knicks' fourth quarter comeback in Game 1.
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