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00:00to talk to on a Fridell Friday ahead of Game 2 of the NBA Finals and our good friend Odyssey
00:06NBA insider Nick Fridell. Insider Call is brought to you by Hyundai and the all-new Hyundai Palisade
00:11Hybrid. Good morning, Nick. How are you? And do you think there's any sort of anger inside
00:17that stoic Victor Wembenyama brain? There better be, Mr. Mack, because if not,
00:27I'm a little concerned that this thing is going to get out of hand in a hurry for San Antonio
00:35having
00:35to go back to the Garden after Game 2. So this is a big-time momentum game. I think Wembenyama
00:45has it in him to right the ship, get everybody focused. What I'm most curious about on top of
00:52is there a little extra juice in there for him tonight is, is he okay? Because he looked
00:59gassed in Game 1. Everybody has been talking about it the last couple days, but even in
01:05the first quarter, you're looking at him going, I don't know. That is my single biggest question
01:13in Game 2 is, is the fire going to be there the way he needs? But did he get enough
01:18of a
01:19break mentally and physically after closing out the Thunder where you look at him and you go,
01:25yeah, he can play more up to the level we've seen throughout the last year?
01:30Yeah, it was one of those things we talked about, just the disparity and rest that these two teams
01:35would have coming into the NBA Finals. And the Knicks certainly didn't play their best game
01:41in Game 1, but end up stealing it, if you want to call it that. It's more about just,
01:46they show up in the fourth quarter, especially Jalen Brunson shows up in the fourth quarter,
01:51especially, and they looked like they were excited for the moment. The Spurs looked like,
01:57again, maybe to your point, it was the lack of rest between series. They didn't look intimidated
02:04by the moment. That's not the right word. They had the lead going into the final, you know,
02:08six minutes of this game, but they looked tentative almost at times, especially Wemby,
02:16you know, stopping to shoot an 18 foot jumper rather than going to the hole, rather than
02:23attacking. And that's, I think, to your point, what we have to see from Wemben Yama, not just
02:29tonight, but going forward in this series for the Spurs to have a chance to even it up and maybe
02:34go on
02:34to win it, is he's got to find those last few reserves of anger if he's got them in there
02:40and aggression and start attacking.
02:44Chris, the supporting cast of the Spurs is really, really good, and they're going to be
02:50a lot better over the next few years because so much of the core of that group is very young.
02:57They're all going through it for the first time. But unless they get Wemby playing like the superstar
03:02that he has shown to be, it ain't going to happen for him. He is the engine. Champagny and Vassell
03:10and
03:11Harper, all these guys, they are nice players and they are enjoying the moment of becoming
03:20even greater in real time, but they aren't that guy. And if the Spurs want to be who they want
03:27to be
03:27as champs, Wemby has to find a different place. And I think when I watch him, it's the biggest
03:36concern I have right now because you just wonder, did they give everything they had to get through
03:43OKC and what do they have left against this veteran-laden Knicks team that has this basketball
03:50killer who appears at the end of the fourth quarters every time and Jalen Brunson that everybody else is
03:56rallying around? So I don't think I'm ready to count out the Spurs by any stretch. But as I watched
04:03game
04:03one, I sat there and went, oh boy, if you don't have Wemby playing at the level he did throughout
04:11most of that
04:12OKC series and they just run body after body after him every night, the Knicks are going to give them
04:20some real problems. Let's go down a path where the Spurs, whether it involves Wemby flipping a switch
04:28or not, the Spurs find a way to win game two. They're six and a half point favorites, which is
04:33wild. I think twice since January, the Knicks have been this big a dog and one of those games was
04:37against
04:38OKC on the road. The other one was the season finale against Charlotte when nobody was in the
04:42lineup. So this is a pretty big number, I think, for game two of the NBA Finals. But let's say
04:49the
04:50Spurs find a way to win it. Let's say the books know what they're doing and this series is even
04:55up,
04:55headed back to the Garden. How do you think the Knicks will handle finally losing for the first time
05:03in like a month and a half? You mentioned it, veteran-laden team. I don't think it would
05:07knock them off their axis too much, but I do question how when everything is going your way,
05:14the way it has for the last month and a half for the Knicks, how you react to maybe losing
05:19a game.
05:19And maybe it's not even a game where the Spurs outplay them. Maybe it flips the script and it's
05:24just the Spurs coming up with the big shots late. Chris, they're going to have to take a collective
05:29deep breath. But as we sit here right now, if they were to lose game two, I wouldn't be concerned
05:35and
05:35I wouldn't be concerned because Brunson. I just think that that guy is wired so differently that
05:43he's not going to let them fall into some kind of emotional hole because they finally lost because
05:49he figures, all right, we'll just get them in game three. And that's why it's just so clear as we
05:56watch
05:56what's unfolded in the last 48 hours. The pressure has absolutely got to be on San Antonio because if
06:04you go down 0-2 into the garden, I've been in New York City the last week, the energy in
06:11this place
06:12is palpable. You have people waiting in line, just for an example, Chris, they're waiting in front of a
06:20subway stop that is painted orange and blue in droves because they're so excited about what's
06:27going on a block away at the garden and the games aren't even going on there. I mean, people are
06:32losing their minds in this city. So if you have a young San Antonio team that walks into game three
06:39and that kind of all, uh-oh, I think the Knicks will be just fine if they end up losing.
06:44The question
06:45I have moving forward into tonight and beyond is I'm not worried about Brunson. Can Carl Anthony
06:51Towns play the same way he did in game one because he was awesome. He's been very good in the
06:57post
06:58season. What happens if you do face some kind of a downward spiral a little bit and the momentum
07:05that you've had for like a month disappears? Are those guys, the Ananobis and the Bridges,
07:12are they going to be okay playing off that? Only time will tell, but I don't think it's a gigantic
07:18concern because they follow their leader and their leader is Jalen Brunson. Yeah, I think that that feeds
07:25right back into what we were saying about Wemby and wanting to see him attack. If he can attack, if
07:29he
07:29can get Towns in foul trouble, if that means more Mitchell Robinson, if that means getting him in foul
07:35trouble and really putting Mike Brown in a spot where he's got to reconfigure the lineup on the fly
07:40just a little bit, that would go a long way towards the Spurs finding some sort of momentum in this
07:48game. Let me pivot back though to what you were talking about, being in New York for the last week
07:52or so. I am convinced that he's got to get the ring to cement his place amongst the all-time
08:02great
08:02clutch players. We had this debate earlier on the show. There are great clutch players who've been out
08:09there. You think of Dame Lillard during his time in Portland would seemingly sink a 35-footer out of
08:15nowhere and they'd win a game, but he doesn't have the ring, right? I'm not making an apples-to-apples
08:22comparison from, say, prime Dame Lillard to Jalen Brunson, but they remain in the same conversation
08:28as clutch guys until Brunson wins the ring. I also think there is a certain sense of amongst fans who
08:37aren't in New York or LA where they hesitate just a little bit to embrace the guy as an all
08:45-time
08:45legendary great or even as good as he is because they know they're already going to get their props
08:50and their love from their home markets and it's going to disperse out across the country.
08:54So there are people that are waiting to sort of crown Jalen Brunson as one of these all-time great
09:00clutch players because he's in New York. That's why we're hearing about him so much. He's in New York.
09:06But I really do think that Brunson is just three wins away from going right up there with,
09:14it sounds like hyperbole, but I don't think it is. Kobe, Jordan, mid to late 80s Bird.
09:22I never saw Jerry West play, but you're all-time great clutch players.
09:28Chris, if Brunson finishes this off, not only does he secure his own legacy as one of the greatest
09:37clutch players we've seen, as you mentioned, as we've seen this season unfold in his development
09:43over the last few years, what he also is going to do, and this goes exactly to your point,
09:49he's going to make it easier for all those little guards coming behind him.
09:54All the questions of, oh, well, can a small guard be the number one on a team?
10:01They're going to be very, very gone because people are going to say, you see what he just did?
10:08It's always within you if you can make it happen.
10:11So I think he relishes being that guy. I know he doesn't really say much at all, frankly, in public.
10:20He's a really interesting guy who doesn't offer anything interesting from a media standpoint.
10:27Maybe he'll open up a little more if they do finish off this series and win these last three.
10:32But I think it speaks to what you are saying.
10:35If Jalen Brunson is the guard who leads the New York Knicks to a championship,
10:41not only is he going to get his jersey retired and the legacy will be cemented,
10:46but he'll be the guy that casual fans all across the country want to come see.
10:51And that puts him in that category, maybe not to the level of the Jordans or the Cobys,
10:59but he's in the conversation of a guy who changed the entire tenor for the organization.
11:06And in this case, as a small guard for the league.
11:09So he can shift a lot of narratives over the next couple of weeks if he closes out this series.
11:16Nick Friedle, Odyssey NBA Insider with us here on You Better You Bet on Westwood One Sports Insider Calls
11:22brought to you by Hyundai and by the all-new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid.
11:25Learn how it makes everyday epic at HyundaiUSA.com.
11:29You talk about small guards, Nick.
11:31We've also talked a lot over the last two rounds of these playoffs about big men.
11:35Whether it was Wemby abusing Chet.
11:38Whether it's, you know, it's been a conversation in every round, really, throughout these playoffs.
11:45Do you have a big man?
11:46Do you have a guy that can match up with Chet or Wemby in the West?
11:51Carl Anthony Towns, as you mentioned earlier, is a big part of the conversation for the Knicks.
11:55I know this is a guard-heavy draft, especially early in the first round.
11:59But do you get the sense that maybe we're pivoting back towards a system in the NBA
12:06that values the big man a whole lot more than it has been in, say, the last 10 to 15
12:12years?
12:13Yes.
12:14I mean, Chris, all this stuff is cyclical.
12:17There's been such a run on, can you score?
12:20Can you push the pace?
12:22Can you get the tempo going?
12:23And it's a copycat league, and it always has been.
12:28If you have big men that are able to change the course of the game, or in the case of
12:35what we've seen sometimes in the postseason,
12:37change the tenor of the playoffs in a series, everything comes back around.
12:43So while I don't think that the game's going to slow down and you're going to go back to early
12:4890s,
12:48where you're throwing the ball into Shaq and Ewing and say, give it to me, you know, and everything slows.
12:54If you have big men that know what they're doing and can stretch the floor in a lot of different
12:58places,
12:58or if you have a dominant big man who can defensively change what's happening out there,
13:05it is going to shift, and the game will adapt that way.
13:09But I think absolutely, to what we're talking about, it's been so guard-heavy for at least the last five,
13:18ten years.
13:19If you can get big men who can alter the course of what's happening,
13:24all of a sudden you're going to see more big men popping up,
13:27and you're going to see teams looking for those guys.
13:30And that has not been the case recently in the way the drafts have come together in what teams are
13:37valuing.
13:37I think that part of the conversation is going to change a little bit.
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