- 2 days ago
David Aldridge joins the show to discuss the vibe around New York heading into Game 3 and how the Spurs can come back in the series.
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00:00You have been covering sports for many years.
00:03You've been to all types of major, major events and games.
00:08What is the vibe in New York right now
00:10compared to all the other things you've done?
00:12I imagine it is chaos.
00:16You know, I'm not out in the streets all this time.
00:22But, you know, look, everybody's excited.
00:24I think everybody's pretty jazzed for the game tonight.
00:27I think the atmosphere is going to be crazy in the building.
00:30I've been in that building many times for many games,
00:33including finals games.
00:35And there's nothing like it generally.
00:38I suspect tonight it's going to be, you know, crazy times 20.
00:43You know, like, it's just going to be insane.
00:47So I think, you know, it'll be special.
00:50You know, it's unfortunate that the fans can't congregate
00:54right outside the building tonight, you know,
00:57because that's been kind of a thing that they do now during the playoffs.
01:00You know, we've seen it.
01:01Other cities have done the same thing in the last few years.
01:05It's kind of a thing that teams have now added on.
01:07When you make the finals, you find an area for people that can't get in.
01:12And it's a good visual on TV to see your fans cheering for your team.
01:15And they are going to have something at a different location,
01:22not by the arena, but somewhere in the city.
01:24I'm not sure exactly where it is, but there will be something.
01:29But it's not the same as kind of being right by the building.
01:33But, yeah, man, it's going to be crazy.
01:35It's going to be crazy.
01:36Like, they've been waiting a long time.
01:39You know, this city kind of gets cut up into fan bases.
01:44You either, you know, like you're a Yankees fan or you're a Mets fan.
01:47You know what I mean?
01:48You're a Giants fan or a Jets fan.
01:50You know, like, this is one of the rare instances
01:53where it seems like everybody is hyped and behind one team.
01:58You know, you see kids wearing jerseys.
02:00I got in the elevator today.
02:01A guy asked me, hey, where can I buy a Knicks hat?
02:04You know, like, everybody's kind of into it.
02:07And it's good to see, man.
02:09It's fun.
02:10I'm happy for the city.
02:11They've been waiting a long time.
02:12Lord knows people in Washington who follow basketball
02:15know what it's like to wait for your team to be good again.
02:19So it's great for them.
02:21It's great to see it, man.
02:22And I think it'll be a crazy atmosphere.
02:24And keep in mind, the Spurs got something to say about it, too.
02:27Yeah.
02:27And they got to win tonight.
02:29So you will see them at their absolute most desperate.
02:32And desperate teams usually win in the playoffs.
02:34So we'll see.
02:36So did you ever, after the Spurs beat the Thunder,
02:39did you ever expect it to be sitting here at 2-0?
02:44I can't say that I expected them to lose both games at home.
02:47No.
02:48I thought they would win at least one at home.
02:51You know, and it's not, they've defended pretty well.
02:57I mean, Brunson is shooting 33% so far.
03:00He hasn't really done much to impact the series.
03:02He had, you know, made some baskets at the end of game one.
03:06But, like, he hasn't had his typical game.
03:08But they can't stop the bench.
03:11The bench has come in and killed them.
03:12You know, like, Shamit and Deuce McBride and those guys have come in and just been terrific.
03:18And then the two forwards, you know, Ananobian Bridges have just dominated so far in this series.
03:25They've been outstanding.
03:27And Cat has been outstanding.
03:28He's outplayed Wemby.
03:30Point blank, period, end of sentence.
03:31He's outplayed them two games in a row now.
03:35So, you know, I didn't think that they would lose both games at home.
03:40But the Knicks are on a heater of all heaters.
03:44And I've said this a few times the last few days.
03:46This reminds me a lot of baseball teams like the Nats in 2019.
03:51You know, the Nats were kind of stumbling and bumbling during the regular season.
03:54And they didn't really look very good.
03:56And then all of a sudden they got hot and they stayed hot, you know, and they just ran the
04:02table and won the World Series.
04:04Like, it goes that way sometimes with a team that kind of figures it out and, you know, has been
04:09scratching and clawing for several weeks.
04:11And then they just get really battle-tested.
04:14And this reminds me of a baseball team that just got hot at the right time of the season.
04:19And the Knicks have been – they haven't lost in 43 days.
04:22Yeah.
04:23That's great.
04:24You know what I mean?
04:24Yeah.
04:25They haven't lost a basketball game in 43 days.
04:29That's insane.
04:30That doesn't happen.
04:31You know, and so at some point, you just have to go, like, they're just playing better than everybody else
04:37right now.
04:37Yeah.
04:38And that's been what it's looked like so far.
04:41Talking with our friend David Aldridge here on the Rude Guest Hotline.
04:45You can give him a follow at David Aldridge DC.
04:48DA, I saw a tweet that I thought was pretty interesting.
04:51After Wemby had the turnover in the closing seconds of the Game 2 loss, are we being appropriately critical of
04:59Wemby when it's deserved?
05:01Or does he kind of get a pass because he's so young and this is the first time at this
05:06stage?
05:06All those sorts of things.
05:10I will say that I don't spend a lot of time kind of marinating in hot takery and what's being
05:16said on TV and what's being said on social media.
05:19I just don't.
05:20I just – it doesn't make me more virtuous than anybody else.
05:23It's just not something I spend a lot of time doing.
05:25I just don't – I don't know what the point is.
05:28Yeah.
05:28I get it.
05:31So if people are being critical of him for the first two games, I mean, you can be critical of
05:36him.
05:36He hasn't played that well, to be honest.
05:39Part of it is the Knicks have provided some real defensive resistance to him.
05:45Part of it is that he hasn't played well.
05:48You know, made a terrible mistake at the end of Game 2.
05:53So it's fair to criticize – look, you're playing for a championship.
05:57Like, you've got to have not just championship effort but championship production to win a ring.
06:03It's hard.
06:04Yeah.
06:05And nobody on that team has had to do this before except for Luke Cornett.
06:10You know, like, he's the only one.
06:12So it's a new ground.
06:14So I – you can be critical of him, you know, when it's warranted.
06:22I would say he's probably going to play better as the series goes on because most great players figure it
06:29out over seven games.
06:30They figure out the best ways to attack.
06:32Their coaches help them.
06:35Their teammates help them, right?
06:37And so – and if he has a bad series, well, he's not the first young player to have a
06:42bad finals.
06:42You know what I mean?
06:44Like, most young players go through this.
06:47LeBron didn't have a great finals in 2007.
06:49Yeah, they played well.
06:51But they got swept.
06:52You know what I mean?
06:52Like, they still got swept.
06:55You know, so you do sometimes, most of the time, have to go through this.
07:01Yep.
07:01There are the occasional Magic Johnsons that say, no, I don't have to go through this.
07:04I'm 20.
07:05I'm Magic Johnson.
07:06And I'm just going to go win this finals on the road in Game 6 with Kareem not playing.
07:11Because I can do that.
07:12Right?
07:13Yeah.
07:13Okay.
07:14You know, there's some guys that can do it.
07:15But most guys, most young players have to go through what Wimbledon's going through.
07:19But I think, Dave, for me, I always say people have to learn how to win, learn how to play
07:25at this level.
07:26He has never been in this situation, and most of the guys on the team with him hadn't been in
07:30it.
07:30The Knicks have been close to this over the years, so they've got a different level of experience now.
07:36You know what I mean?
07:37And Jalen Brunson has been doing this for a while.
07:40That whole team, those guys have a chemistry.
07:43And I just think it's society who we put the extra pressure by trying to make people stars before they
07:48are,
07:48make them bigger than what they are before they are.
07:50Then when they don't do the things we want them to do, we want to knock them.
07:54No.
07:54It's our expectation that's being messed up.
08:00There's some truth to that.
08:01But also, there's also truth that they did beat the defending champions in Game 7 on the road,
08:07and so that creates an expectation.
08:09Right.
08:10You know what I mean?
08:10If you beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 in Oklahoma City, people think,
08:14all right, then you're the man.
08:15You know what I'm saying?
08:16Like, you just beat the man, then you're the man.
08:18Yeah.
08:18And so then you come up, you know, and you don't, and it's a different series.
08:23And I do think there was a bit of a hangover because they put so much energy into beating OKC.
08:28I do think there was a hangover.
08:29But there's also a team on the other side that ain't lost in six weeks.
08:33You know what I'm saying?
08:34I agree.
08:35They came in and took it.
08:37You know, it's not like the Spurs gave it to them and they came in and took it.
08:42And so it's always a little bit of everything, B.
08:47I mean, what you said is right, but I think there's a lot.
08:50There's several things to it, especially when it's a team that hasn't been in a championship series before.
08:57And the finals are just different, man.
08:59They're just different.
09:00It's a whole different energy.
09:03Your fans expect so much and, you know, they're nervous and they don't really cheer like they normally do
09:11because they're so nervous.
09:12And then you have Knicks fans that bought their way into the building.
09:15So there's a lot of Knicks fans in San Antonio.
09:17And that kind of impacts the home court a little bit because you're not used to having thousands of fans
09:23of the other team cheering for them.
09:25You know, like, so there was that vibe, too.
09:27And so, you know, it's a lot of different things going on in it.
09:31But I think I don't want to take away from how well the Knicks are playing right now.
09:35They are playing incredibly good basketball right now.
09:38So, D.A., what's more likely, a Knicks sweep or the Spurs come back to win?
09:46Oh, a Knicks sweep would be, of course, would be more likely.
09:50Will it happen?
09:51I don't know.
09:52I mean, look, tonight's the series.
09:55If the Spurs win, we have a chance in a series.
09:57The Knicks win, it's going to be over pretty soon.
10:00You know, it'll be over by the end of the week.
10:01But, so, I mean, you can't, I don't think anybody, even the most ardent Spurs fan, can sit there with
10:10a straight face and say,
10:11we expect to win four of the next five games against a team that hasn't lost a game in 43
10:16days.
10:17You know what I mean?
10:18Like, that's just not, you don't expect that.
10:21You may hope for that to happen, but you can't say you expect that to happen.
10:25If they expect for that, there's something wrong with them.
10:28Right, you expect to win three road games, you know, in a row, or you know what I mean?
10:33Like, it's just not, that's not my expectation at this point in the series.
10:37I expect the Knicks to win this series, whether it's in five games or six games or, I mean, I
10:42suppose it could be seven games.
10:44But right now, I think five or six have a very good chance of happening one of those two.
10:51What does San Antonio have to do tonight to win one?
10:54Like, what is, offensively, they get stagnant.
10:58Like, I just don't know what, I don't, the Knicks deserve all the credit.
11:01Like you said earlier, Carl Anthony Towns is playing his best basketball at the biggest moments.
11:07He deserves a ton of credit for that.
11:09Like, I don't know that the Spurs can get right with the way New York's defending.
11:14Well, you know, Doug Palin, who I worked with at Turner for many years, he used to always say this.
11:20He used to always say, if my best player is struggling offensively, my job is to get him a layup
11:27as a coach.
11:28I got to figure out a way to get him an easy look at the basket.
11:31And so I think it's the Spurs have to find a way to get Wem and Yama going early, where
11:38he's not.
11:39I don't think Wemby's at his best when he's facing the basket and trying to get to the rim and
11:45spin and cross people over.
11:46Can he do that?
11:47Yes.
11:48Can he do it against this team?
11:50No.
11:51You can't do it.
11:52You're going to turn the ball over.
11:54You're going to take contested shots.
11:56You're not going to shoot.
11:57So they have to figure out a way to get him the ball on the move going toward the basket.
12:05And there's things you can try.
12:08I know that's not, he may not be the most comfortable player on the block.
12:12I get that, but I think you have to be able to adapt because they're not going to let you
12:18play the way you normally want to play.
12:21They're just not going to allow you to do what you want to get to your shot, to get to
12:27the elbow, or to get a foot in the paint.
12:31Carl's big and strong.
12:32He's not going to allow you to just do that.
12:34They're bringing help all the time.
12:36And so you've got to find different ways to get him going.
12:40You know, you've got to get him on a duck in.
12:43You've got to set a cross screen for him.
12:44You've got to do something where he catches the ball and he's six feet from the basket.
12:47And now he can make a decision about shooting it or passing it out of a double tee.
12:53So I think that has to happen.
12:55I think they have to create some more turnovers because San Antonio really wants to get out and run.
13:00And they're really good in transition.
13:02And they're going to have to make some threes.
13:04You know, they've got to make some threes.
13:05They made some in the first two games.
13:08But they usually are a high-volume three-point shooting team.
13:11They like to shoot a lot of threes in a game.
13:13And the best way to shoot a lot of threes is to get a lot of threes in transition.
13:18And you get threes in transition by turning over the other teams.
13:21And they have to create more turnovers to have a chance to do that.
13:26And I think offensively, like I watched an Oklahoma City game series,
13:31they shied away from taking shots around Wimby.
13:34New York's going right at it.
13:35They're making him play defense more, which in turn affects him on the offensive end too.
13:41No doubt.
13:41And that's the uniqueness of Carl Anthony Towns is that, you know,
13:45he's certainly the best shooting big man in the league now and maybe one of the best ever.
13:53Like, he makes it hard for Wimby to just stay packed in the paint because Carl can make the three.
13:59He shoots deep threes and makes them.
14:01So you have to respect that.
14:03And then if you come out and if you close hard on him,
14:07Carl is very good at getting his shoulder into you.
14:11And once he's got his shoulder into you, it's a wrap because he's 6'10", 260.
14:16He's a big person, you know, and he's a strong guy.
14:19And so once he gets you on your heels, he can get to the basket very quickly.
14:24He's very good at it.
14:25He's very good at drawing contact.
14:27And he's playing at a very high level right now.
14:30You know, Cat is having a hell of a postseason.
14:33And, you know, it just makes it makes it's a hard matchup for Wimby.
14:38It's just hard because Carl can do different things offensively to make it hard for Wimby to guard him.
14:46D.A., man, thank you for the time.
14:47Enjoy that scene at the garden tonight.
14:50All right, gentlemen.
14:51Good talk to you.
14:52All right.
14:52Thank you, man.
14:52Good talk to you.
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