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Brian Geltzeiler from Sirius XM NBA joins G&D to detail how the Spurs can bounce back in the finals.
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00:00right now it's time to talk the nba finals with one of our guys
00:03brian geltseiler does such a great job breaking down
00:07the nba always love his energy and passion for the sport and
00:11brian i know you were enjoying last night's game
00:13a classic for three plus quarters jalen brunson ends up taking it over
00:18is it over reacting to say the knicks are now
00:22the favorites the rest of the way oh i don't think so at all i think it was
00:26a very even series to start i thought the odds makers probably
00:30favored san antonio a little too much coming in
00:32even though i picked san antonio in seven but i thought that would be about
00:35the slimest of margins but that the mix have gone and taken home court
00:38advantage away from the spurs i don't think it's
00:41an overstatement to say the knicks look and appear to be the favorite
00:44listen to one of the things that was interesting i mean neither team played a
00:47wonderful game last night the knicks certainly played below what
00:50they have recently but again you know it's also
00:53tougher opponent um for san antonio there's definitely a lot of things that
00:58need to be corrected and listen fatigue certainly played a role
01:02but i thought that san antonio's guard play
01:05and just like you know they really didn't get when bignan of the ball in the
01:10spots that he's comfortable in and carl towns had a lot to do with that
01:14but i also feel as though they're a little quick sometimes to shoot lower
01:17percentage threes and you know and and the air fox put horrible last night
01:22and i think if san antonio is going to have some success in this series
01:26they're going to need fox to not only make a few shots here and there i mean
01:30they had seven points on three of 13 shooting
01:32he's gotta he has to be a passer first and make sure that
01:35he's keeping one of the armor at the center of their universe and so
01:39as i said i don't think san antonio is going to shoot 11 of 43 from three again in
01:42this series i mean the shooting will be a little bit better
01:44and they'll certainly be a little bit tougher but san antonio has got some things
01:48that they have to correct and nicks did a great job and it took only three
01:52quarters to do it of extricating victor wendin yama from jalen brunson
01:56and they did that by carl towns being a constant threat on every touch
02:00and i do think that if i'm san antonio here going into game two one of the early
02:05adjustments i'm going to make is before i have wendin yama nose to nose
02:09with towns behind the three-point line i'm going to force towns to take a couple
02:13threes and make a couple of threes before i step out that way because i do
02:16think that wendin yama respecting towns's three-point shots opened up a
02:21whole lot of space towns punishing them off the bounce only made
02:25wendin yama have to guard him tighter only creating more space for brunson
02:29where wendin yama was not a shadow in the same way he was a shadow over sga
02:33in the okc series i think it's a smart point bernie i want to get back to towns
02:36in a second but you kind of touched on this as well it felt to me like san
02:41antonio was that was not who they were last night especially down the stretch
02:44it's like they hadn't met each other and it was five guys kind of standing
02:47around and going let's get it to wendy uh like it's a pickup game and everyone
02:50was tired at the ymca on a sunday morning and there was no offense there it was
02:53kind of him going one on five and we'll see what happens that kind of didn't
02:56feel like spurs basketball there a what did you see it be what adjustments do
03:00you think it made well it's listen it's it's a very very good point i thought
03:05outside of they shot keep this in mind guys they were 11 of 43 from three
03:10champagne at the end of the first half was five to six from three right now
03:13again he missed his last four in the second half the knicks made the
03:16adjustment at halftime to be able to go and attack shooters personnel wise i just
03:21think dylan harper's got to play more than 27 minutes that's the touch the
03:25knicks could not handle dylan harper he manhandled landry shammett whenever
03:29shammett tried to guard him and i and i think so the first adjustment is a simple
03:33personnel adjustment which is that if the cell's not playing well and fox isn't
03:38playing well you there harper's got to play close to 40 minutes in these games
03:41he's the toughest matchup he is the toughest matchup that that that the
03:46knicks have right now so i think that's really a big issue here
03:49um for san antonio is is you have to see harper on the floor more the other thing
03:54is this with one mayam and again i mentioned him
03:56stepping off towns a little bit on the defensive end so he can be available
04:00for a lot more help i also thought san antonio in not wanting the knicks to get
04:05involved in a transition game sacrifice the transition game themselves
04:08they're going to need those kinds of easy baskets and they're very good at
04:12shooting transition threes and didn't get a lot of them and the knicks
04:15transition defense played a very big role in that i think you're going to
04:18have to see definitely more of that and the other thing that i would do is i i
04:23would do something like they did late in the okc series you're struggling to get
04:27the ball to when binyama in the paint they even struggle to enter into with the
04:30elbow which they love to do so if that's all where where their struggles
04:34are with when binyama put the ball in his hands on the wing and i know listen i
04:39know probably dribbled a little too much last night but i'd almost rather see him
04:42treat towns the way towns treated him off the dribble because one thing we did see
04:46late in the okc series out of when binyama is when you put the ball in his
04:49hands and it worked well against hartenstein he was able to when you
04:52double them a little bit he was able to be a playmaker and find some open
04:56shooters and spurs are much better on those kick out threes than they are the
04:59passing from the side types of threes the other thing is this
05:03towns has did not commit any stupid fouls last night he is susceptible to
05:07stupid fouls san antonio is much better against the
05:11nits when carl towns off the floor wendy having the ball on the perimeter and
05:15attacking towns a little bit off the dribble makes towns more susceptible to
05:19fouling more hence maybe san antonio can get him off the floor
05:22brian geltseiler on grant and danny after game one of the nba finals so you
05:28mentioned dylan harper getting more minutes you know creeping up toward 40
05:31minutes which obviously the switch there is less fox you then have to defend
05:36him with og and ob some it seems like it makes a lot of sense
05:39there's a long history though of teams getting to the finals and just kind of
05:43going down the way that they got there do you think they will do that
05:48explain that question again you confuse me a little bit on that one
05:51yes so you're saying you want closer to 40 minutes from harper right
05:56correct so a lot of the times when you're talking about a significant
06:00adjustment or tweak or change like that teams aren't willing to do it in the
06:04finals because they're going oh fox is our guy we're going to ride him we've
06:08seen this with the gnats and other teams on championship runs where it's like
06:11nope that's the guy we're trotting out there we're hitting him second even if
06:14he's ice cold do you think they actually make that adjustment
06:19it's a great question it really is and it's just gonna use to say this all the
06:23time you know you'd watch the game and say well why aren't they defending this
06:26this way and he'll say because they haven't worked on it all year and
06:29haven't practiced it and guys don't know how to do it it runs the same thing
06:33with personnel i'm not saying start harper but i am saying with harper in
06:37this role you're gonna have to find a way to play more do i think they're
06:40actually gonna do it i think they're gonna have to listen if they're right now
06:44if they lose game two the odds of them winning this series reduce
06:48dramatically they need to get game two and go back to new york in a 1-1
06:53series if they're down 12 points with four minutes left in the third quarter
06:58you know what you better be riding dylan harper he's your toughest matchup
07:01here's the other thing about dylan harper in this series that's important
07:03the knicks have the outside of victor when bignano the knicks have the best
07:08defensive player in this series in og ananobi
07:09and you if og has to guard dylan harper that means he's not on one of the other
07:16really good perimeter guys whether it's castle whether it's fox whether it's
07:19the cell you you all you put him there and allow another guy to be freed up a
07:24little bit and i'll say it again guys i think the weakness for the knicks here
07:28is going to be landry shamit and i think san antonio one of the successful things
07:32they did was attacking shamit early and often and shamit held them a little bit
07:36better in the second half but he's not they're too big on a perimeter for
07:40shamit to deal with them and too strong shamit's going to struggle and mike
07:43brown showed you last night and listen shamit they were 20 points better than
07:47nicks last night with shamit on the bench than with shamit on the floor
07:50mike brad still played him 33 minutes mike brown's going to play him because he
07:54needs the shooting and i'm not blaming mike he's doing a super job
07:57here's my point that's a weakness that san antonio can attack
08:00and they should be attacking it a whole lot more than they did in the second half so
08:04getting back to your question i do think mitch johnson maybe doesn't jump to
08:09play harper extra minutes immediately but i think the second he gets himself
08:13into a little bit of a situation where they're down in the game oh i think
08:16he'll lean into harper just as a matter of survival
08:19ryan geltzeller with us here on gnd breaking down the finals i want to go back
08:22to towns i mean this is a guy at one point ryan it was one uh you know the
08:25leading scorers in the nba we've seen what it's like when he's the best player
08:28on a team and kind of the offense runs through him
08:31he's getting his in a different way i thought he was great defensively
08:34last night against wemby just sort of how sustainable is that and
08:38kind of talk about his evolution
08:40it's very sustainable listen we started to see some of this stuff
08:44at the end of the minnesota tenure when he guarded yokich
08:48very well uh in yeah you know he did a great job
08:53on uh yokich for the timberwolves okay now he comes here and he's listen
08:57carl when carl gets outside the pain and towards the three-point line
09:01he's susceptible to make defensive mistakes he's not particularly great moving
09:05his feet against guards and he's the king of the dumb foul
09:09when he gas a big guy like wendy and he can give him a little bit of space on
09:14the perimeter and he can get out in front of him and
09:16wendy's big thing with his first step is that enormously long stride
09:21listen i know carl's giving up about five inches on him
09:24but carl's getting in front of him he's not letting him get by him at all
09:27so you look at this evolution of towns there has been an unselfish evolution
09:31of carl towns's game carl wanted the offense to run through him a whole lot more
09:36than it ran through jaylen brunson for the knicks in these playoffs and mike
09:39brown has showed some faith in him and what he's done is rewarded that faith
09:42because we talk about everything he did defensively last night and it was
09:44outstanding he did a as good a job on when binyom as you will see someone do
09:48but what he's done offensively has really been what's galvanized the knicks
09:52because you have a lot of complaints okay where they have just not where he were
09:57guys weren't seeing the ball enough they start running through towns at the elbow
10:00okay and they're seeing the ball he's everybody's seeing the ball everybody's
10:04happy all this it's a mix we're a team that we're at each other's throats for
10:07the better part of a year and a half all of a sudden everybody's holding hands
10:11and singing kumbaya carl's played an enormous role in that and you saw last
10:15night in one of the in one of the audio assist clips where essentially carl's
10:19telling the guys we know what happens with our offense it happened in game one
10:23of the cleveland series our offense will get back just keep playing the defense and
10:26keep guarding the way we're guarding and towns has become a big everybody
10:30talks about brunson as this great leader and he is don't get me wrong
10:33towns assuming a leadership role brunson being supportive of it everybody's
10:38seeing the ball it's strengthened the knicks in every single way
10:41sirius xm nba radio nba tv brian geltseiler with us on gnd
10:46so what shot are you calling here for game two how do you see it playing out
10:51listen i would be surprised if the knicks win game two i think you'll see
10:55a little bit of a different version of the spurs i think the spurs are going to
10:59play faster i think you know one of the things the
11:02spurs did at the end of the okc series is they prioritize when these touches
11:06regardless of where on the floor they got away from that last night and have to
11:09get back to that so i think you're going to see a lot of
11:12half-court offense run through when binyama i think you're going to see the
11:15spurs play faster because it plays to their advantage and i do think one of the
11:19things that seemed with a nick struggled a little bit last night
11:22was with the 94 feet of pressure defense on their ball handler and i think
11:27ultimately i the spurs would rather jaylen brunson have to handle the ball in
11:32the first two quarters of this game so he's not fresh and rested late in
11:36games because when you look at big differences in the knicks from last
11:39year's playoff front to this year's playoff front brunson looks fresh on the
11:42stretch of games now again playing less games and having huge rest certainly
11:45helped that also playing off the ball helps that a ton and people forget very
11:49quickly jaylen brunson made his bones in this league as in as an off-ball player
11:54playing next to luca donchitz for the dallas mavicks he's terrific off the ball
11:58so the knicks are taking advantage of that here in these playoffs in a way that
12:01they never have the thing is for the spurs you want to get brunson back on the
12:05ball so you can harass him and wear him down a little bit and when the other guys
12:09are handling whether it's heart or bridges if it's a castle on them or a fox on
12:13them you know or or uh even the cell they can they can steal the ball you saw
12:17brunson picked the ball from fox one time so i think getting back to pressure
12:21defense is going to be enormous for san antonio playing a whole lot faster and
12:26just running through things through wendy a lot more when champagny got hot from
12:30three and the knicks were leaving him they leaned into the three-pointer too
12:33much the knicks last night were very happy to let fox the cell and castle
12:38shoot open threes they were not they let champagny shoot too many of them when
12:42they cracked down on him he started missing and they have to do something about
12:45harper i know that harper had a miss in the fourth quarter but they really
12:49struggle with harper and i think they have to put og on him but i think when
12:52you look at the spurs side of this it's just going to be faster play higher
12:56quality shots because i'll tell you this one of the things i was surprised with
13:00last night the spurs were tough on the offensive glass and god and and ended up
13:04getting back in a game in the fourth quarter on the offensive glass that was
13:08huge so i think for the knicks you know being 60 60 in rebounds and losing the
13:12battle on the offensive glass 14 10 is something i don't think you see happen
13:16again so i think for the san antonio here play it faster
13:21the the the mentioned uh darren fox a guy that i've long admired and liked a lot
13:25it looked last night like he was almost doing an avery johnson impression for
13:27some of those great spurs teams where he's terrified to shoot and i know he's
13:31talked about sacrificing his game for the betterment of the team and and that's
13:34kind of worked well but i don't know i mean i know you mentioned the harper fix but
13:37is there a way to get fox going and is it that just hey let's get out and run a
13:41little bit maybe get him a couple easy looks because he looked really
13:43uncomfortable offensively last night first things first he's hurt and and i
13:47and you know he's got a high ankle sprain that probably would have kept him
13:50out three to four weeks in a regular season he's had two games and he's
13:53playing with it right now so i'm gonna i'll give him the benefit of the doubt
13:57there because beyond that short of game seven of the okc series he has been
14:02terrible since he's come back from that injury absolutely terrible and i and i
14:06think it is a matter of getting him out in transition a little bit i think it's
14:10also a matter of fox having the mentality as crazy as it sounds going to be
14:13similar to josh hart and i heard jerry stackhouse on nba radio this morning
14:17use this in an interview he used this term of dribbling yourself covered when
14:23they're leaving you open to shoot and you've seen josh hart did it last night
14:26he was one of five from the field the greatest three-point game you'll ever see
14:29a player have last night but part of it was that he was willing to dribble into
14:33when vinyama in the paint and then turn around and look for cutters or
14:37shooters there i think you have to see some of that with fox because i can
14:41promise you this the knicks are going to leave fox wide open to shoot threes all
14:44over again the aaron fox three-point shot is a favorable outcome for the
14:48knicks defense so i think fox has to adjust that way play the game much more
14:52off the dribble and again i think it is it isn't necessarily as simple as just
14:56playing faster and playing a transition game i think it's a matter of fox having
15:01to not just take what the defense gives them and go and go and trying to take
15:06some of this by the throat the other thing is this he's had success here in
15:09these playoffs when he's been a pass first point guard make it about when
15:13vinyama and less about getting your own shot the air pots gets a little hung up
15:16sometimes with getting his own shot and when he's shooting as poorly as he is
15:19right now that's a recipe for disaster for the spurs you can see why we love
15:23brian geldzeiler brian before we let you go you're on in dc i gotta ask you about
15:28one one with the wizards so i'm assuming it's a three slice pie here but if you
15:32want to add a slice you can give me the percentages of the pie of they stick and
15:39pick the bonsa they stick and pick someone not named aj the bonsa or they
15:43trade the pick like how do you see this 70 percent the bonsa 25 percent peterson
15:48five percent one of the other two guys that's how i see it so you think they
15:53stick and pick regardless i do i don't think they're trading out of this thing i
15:57really i wouldn't if i were them the problem with trading out is that you know
16:03what exactly are you going to get is somebody when you have four players in
16:07this draft that are this good i don't know that anybody's going to give you the
16:11mother load to trade up to one and for you to get two three or four and i gotta
16:16tell you if you trade out of the top four in this draft you got it rocks in your
16:20head that'd just be a moronic idiotic thing to do and michael winger is not a
16:24moron or an idiot so i to me like you kind of look at how it all shakes out
16:28you don't want to trade out of the top four and if you're at two three and four
16:32why am i going to give them the mother load for the bonsa when my
16:35consolation prize and keeping my other assets is going to be at players as
16:39good as peterson caleb wilson or cam boozer the answer is you're not and so
16:43that's why i think i i think i'd be very surprised if when we have draft night
16:48and it's time for the widget to pick that aj devonsa isn't the pick right you're the
16:52best buddy enjoy the rest of the finals man thanks for the time today
16:55always my pleasure guys we'll do it again soon take care thank you one of the
16:58best brian geltseiler check him out on nba tv it's also on sirius xm nba
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