It is the JR Sport Brief Show on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you to everybody listening all over North America. I appreciate you. If nobody told you thank you today, I did.
You're damn right I did. Thank you. I'll be hanging out with you for the next three hours.
This show gets started every weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. Where have you been? If you weren't here for the first hour. Are you at work? Are you at home?
Are you going to listen? My bad. You can hit rewind on the free Odyssey app. Just look up the Infinity Sports Network. Look up the JR Sport Brief Show.
Not hard to find. Thank you to everybody listening live on their local Infinity Sports Network affiliate. If you got Sirius XM, it's channel 375. You got a smart speaker?
Ask the speaker to play the Infinity Sports Network. Man, what do we talk about the first hour? Oh, the Boston Celtics choking, the New York Knicks winning, the Thunder beating the living hell out of the Nuggets. We learned a lot about science, coral reefs and ocean oxygen and Halliburton, Tyrese Halliburton, not fond for doing the big Cahones dance. No fond for him. Also, we learned that for the fans of the sweet science boxing, I know you're excited for this one. Prepare yourselves. Manny Pacquiao is coming back.
Coming back. Oh, no, no, no enthusiasm about that one. No. OK, no. He's going to face Mario Barrios. OK, no, no enthusiasm about that.
OK. All right. I don't know if there would be enthusiasm if Manny Pacquiao woke up and said, I'm going to fight Floyd Mayweather. And what is what is Mayweather doing?
Mayweather is I mean, the last fights he's done has been exhibitions. He's fighting, I don't know. Batra, which Paul did he fight, Jake? Right. He fought Logan.
Jake fought Tyson. Oh, OK. It is the fat one and the skinny one.
Well, these thinner one, I should say. I can't keep up. That's the one that didn't work on Netflix, right? It was real choppy. Yeah, the Jake Paul one didn't work on Netflix. Yeah.
All we saw on Netflix was Mike Tyson's ass and then the rest of the fight was choppy. OK. Terrific. Yeah. Mayweather's fighting that one, whichever one that was, and then he ain't coming back for no real fight for what? Batra, Manny has to be bored, right? Is that what it is? He's either bored or broke.
That's got to be it. Or he's just trying to get rid of politics now. So he's just going back to the thing he knows best. Yeah, I don't know how that works out there in the Philippines. I don't know if he's term limited out.
I have no idea. He's a very nice fellow. But look, when you fight your whole life. And that's how you make your money.
What else are you going to do now? I've heard for years, whether it's domestically or in the Philippines, Manny Pacquiao has reportedly had issues with the tax man. Have you seen how that guy wrote many Pacquiao rolls deep? Put it that way.
All right. Good luck to Manny Pacquiao. More specifically, good luck to Manny Pacquiao's brain. I have no idea the condition that that guy's brain is going to be in. Anyway, we got so much more to get into as the show continues on. I'm going to get into a little bit of politics.
Prepare yourselves. It involves Nick Saban. How about this? In 20 minutes, we're going to have a chat with Christian Winfield from the New York Daily News. Have a chat with him about what the New York Knicks are doing. Whether or not people are going to give Tom Thibodeau a break. We'll get into all of that with Christian Winfield in about 15 to 20 minutes. Speaking of a break, and speaking of a brain, Paul Pierce.
This guy's walking all across Los Angeles today. All right. Okay.
I'll explain why. The Golden State Warriors are back in action in a little more than an hour from now. Against the Minnesota Timberwolves, there is no Steph Curry dealing with that hamstring strain. And Steph Curry actually spoke today and gave an update, if there is one.
Bottom line, he ain't playing for a week and he is not going to rush it. So we got a lot to get into as the show continues on. Thank you again to our producer, Ron Botcher.
If you want to call up 888-710-4ISN, that's 888-710-4ISN. I told you we gonna talk politics. Everybody's favorite thing.
Of course it is. Nick Saban, not necessarily dipping his toe, jumping foot first, feet first into politics. He's not Manny Pacquiao trying to become a senator or prime minister somewhere. Nick Saban is trying to help out the best way he can about something he cares deeply about, and that's college football. Yes, the president of the United States of America, President Trump. This man is forming a commission.
It sounds fancy. Yes, he's forming a commission to help solve the issues surrounding college sports in the United States of America. And Nick Saban, the man who decided to quit college football because he was sick of families coming up to him saying, hey, how much am I going to get paid? Nick Saban said nothing. Leave me alone. Shut up. Nick Saban is expected to be a co-chair of this new committee, this new commission, trying to figure out what potential parameters are there to kind of reign in transfer rules. The matters of making money off of your name, image and likeness, and you should.
And the overall lack of regulation when it comes to college athletics, it just seems like the wild, wild west. Everybody can wake up and do what they want to do. Imagine if you could just switch jobs day by day. You don't want to work here today. You go somewhere else tomorrow. You don't like where you're at. Go back. You know, there's just so much nonsense in college sports.
There's nothing wrong with these athletes making money off of who the hell they are. You want to throw me in a video game? Pay me.
You want to put me in a commercial? Pay me. Just like everything else in America. You should be able to make an honest living just because you play in some damn school should not exclude you from making some cash. And eventually the schools, as far as I'm concerned, the school's going to have to pay. The athletes are cut too.
I think that's coming. The problem is there is no organization. And that's a reason why Nick Saban left. It's one of the reasons why a Jay Wright left the Jim Baham left a coach K left.
He's like, I don't want to deal with panties guys. I want to coach him. If you want to come play for me, ask me about being a better football player. Ask me about being a better basketball player.
Don't ask me how much money you're going to make and then leave. Who wants to do that? And so Nick Saban, he's made this very clear since he stepped down that he wants to help figure out how to fix college athletics. I mean, dammit, if we go back to last year, last March, Nick Saban was sitting in front of Congress.
He's going to do a whole hell of a lot more of that now. And he was basically saying, we need your help. We need government help. We need you to pass laws to help fix college sports. All the things I believed for all these years, 50 years of coaching no longer exist in college athletics.
So it's always about developing players. It was always about helping people be more successful in life. My wife even said to me, we'd have all the recruits over on Sunday with their parents for breakfast. And she would always meet with the mothers and talk about how she was going to help and impact their sons and how they would be well taken care of. And she came to me, you know, like right before I retired and said, why are we doing this? And I said, what do you mean?
She said, all they care about is how much you're going to pay them. They don't care about how you're going to develop them, which is all what we've always done. So why are we doing this? So, you know, to me, that was sort of a red alert that we really are creating a circumstance here that is not beneficial to the development of young people. As I said before, Name, Image and Likeness is a great opportunity for them to create a brand for themselves. I'm not against that at all.
But to come up with some kind of a system that still can help the development of young people, I think is paramount to the future of college athletics. Now, man, we got to we need the government to come up with laws for this. How long is this going to take? It took. Oh, I said, Ed O'Bannon played what?
Not even 30. Damn, damn, damn. Wow.
I just hurt myself actually coming to the realization. Ed O'Bannon played almost what, 35, 40 years ago. Okay.
35, 40 years. It took almost that damn long for us to get to a space and even even longer than that for college athletes to get paid or to excuse me, to be allowed to make money off of who the hell they were. Like, you can't take a photo of me and distribute the photos and then all of a sudden you make the money off. It's my face. Me.
Give me my money. It took almost 40 years to get that from Ed O'Bannon. The NCAA just basically threw up their hands in the air and said, oh, Name, Image and Likeness is here and you guys figured out and they said, we don't care. After all these years of them kind of hoarding the money and keeping it away from the college athletes, now we got NIL.
It'd be nice if the NCAA gave a damn, but they don't. Because if you're now chopping me off for making money, why do I care about what else happens away from me? I don't care.
I lost my cut. You figure it out. This is terrible. And so what happens? We're going to get more Nick Saban sitting up in Washington, D.C. trying to figure out how to rein things in because the NCAA is, well, lazy, you know what?
My college sports, college athletics is already going to hell in a handbasket when it comes to tradition, when it comes to schools moving conferences, when it comes to transfer portal, where it comes to lack of guardrails and guidelines for the athletes to make money. It's already in hell in a handbasket. How the hell are you going to corral all the cats? It's like being a cat herder. You ever seen one of those, a cat herder? No. Yeah, there you go. Could you imagine?
There's a reason why. Could you imagine is 60 cats getting loose on a farm and one guy trying to catch them all? Yeah, it'd be impossible.
It's not happening unless you got fish. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, we're not going backwards here. And I'm afraid I don't want to talk about wasting money, but I'm afraid we ain't doing nothing but wasting a bunch of money by sending a bunch of people to Congress to talk about this, to think about some laws and rules that are going to take. I don't know.
This sounds absolutely terrible. Forgive me. Forgive me. These guys are going to be gone by the time we really have implemented change. That's it.
And so God bless Nick Saban. Does he need to go up to Congress to help change this? How many people does he need to talk to? How many deals does he need to make? How many buts does he need to kiss?
How many hands does he need to shake? Why doesn't he write up the ideas? Does he have to go to Congress?
Does he have to go to the government to get this done the last time I checked? Let me look. They take forever to do anything. We have a lot of individuals who have worked in college athletics and been coaches who are up in Congress. These guys are very old, by the way, very, very old. But we got guys. They know how long this stuff takes. I don't know.
Do they just like to hear the sound of their voice? Like, honorable. Congratulations, Nick Saban.
We appreciate your efforts. But do I think that Congress is going to move fast enough to change college sports or try to rein it in? No. Hell no. It's too late.
Ryan, do you think this is going to amount to anything or is this everybody patting each other on the back? I'd say it'd take many years. Five, ten years. Oh my. Optimistic. That's yeah.
I think that there wouldn't be a position for Nick Saban if he didn't believe change could actually happen. It's just a matter of time. And I don't know when they'll focus on handling this, but it'll get done eventually after the list of many other problems in America. Oh, yeah. Where does this fall on a list of one to one thousand of problems in America? Where does this rank on the congressional calendar?
Pretty low. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
We got to fix college athletics because it's destroying the country. OK. All right. All right. What are the heck is this? Turmeric shots.
Oh, my God. They sell anything. But you want some of this stuff? What does that even do?
Turmeric is supposed to be good for your immune system as well as, you know, keeping the disease and stuff down and getting rid of what do you call this inflammatory stuff in your body is supposed to be good for you. I'm good. Yeah.
Well, they sell anything in a bottle now. OK. Yeah. What's the thing that regulates the FCC? That's not it.
That's us. CDC. The Center for Disease Control.
Who is the one that does the food? The FDA. FDA. That's what it is. The FDA.
They really let anything go through in America. Oh, wow. Yeah. Give you some of the red dye number. What is it? Red dye five, six, seven or eight.
What do you know? It's 40. Red 40.
Red dye 40. OK. You think they might have banned that? Maybe. It's America. We're here for everything.
Justin, if you can ingest it, it's good for you. OK. Welcome to America. College football. Nick Saban will fix it in D.C. It's the J.R. Sportbrie show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We're going to take a break when we come back. We're going to talk some New York Knicks basketball. We're going to be joined by Christian Winfield covers the Knicks for the New York Daily News. Look, if the New York Knicks go up 30 on the Celtics, things are about to get real loud in the United States of America.
Yeah. And it'll all be coming from New York. We'll talk to Christian on the other side of the break. It's the J.R. Sportbrie show, the Infinity Sports Network. You're listening to the J.R. Sportbrie.
Oh, oh, we got the we got the accompanying music here for our next guest. It is the J.R. Sportbrie show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. The New York Knicks have a 2-0 series lead against the Boston Celtics. Who would have thought they had to overcome two 20 point deficits to get there? And now they have an opportunity on Saturday afternoon to go up 3-0 against the defending champs to talk about what the Knicks realistically might do, how they got here, what we can expect. It's time to chat with someone who covers the team full time for the New York Daily News, his name. Welcome back, Christian Winfield. Christian, how are you, man?
Man, I am first of all finally chilling in my own apartment after an extended stay in Boston. But I can't honestly I can't believe what I just saw in these last two games and we're going to get into it. But my oh my, if anyone told me that the Knicks were coming back from Boston with a 2-0 lead, I'd have told them to go get drug tested. You know what I'm saying?
I told them to go seek help. There was no way that you were telling me walking into this series that a Knicks team that couldn't even really make some of these games against the Celtics competitive for the first half of the season was going to come in here and make this series competitive. But when you consider that for three of those games, they didn't have Mitchell Robinson and Big Mitch was plus 19 last night and he's got the Celtics shooting all these threes because they ain't trying to attack him.
And then you got OG and Michaela. We're going to get into it when you start to put these pieces together. Makes a little bit of sense that the Knicks are at least hanging in in these games, but winning and up 2-0. I don't know that anybody saw this coming, man. This is it's the city is on fire for a good reason right now.
I was going to ask you that on the scale of one to 10 on the obnoxious scale. It's only Thursday. We got two more days.
Well, about a day and a half before we get to Saturday. New York Knicks fans are feeling. I'm sure you've heard about it since you got back into the city. I am concerned that Madison Square Garden will not make it to the conference finals because of the Knicks win game four. If there's a sweep of the Boston Celtics, they're going to have to find a new place to play home games, man. Knicks fans are going to burn this arena down if they sweep the Celtics.
Forget a championship. If they sweep the Celtics, Knicks are going to be playing games at Rucker Park. They're going to be trying to rent out Barclays.
They're going to be trying to find a YMCA to bring the Pacers or the Cavaliers to because there will not be a Madison Square Garden. It's just going to be rubble because Knicks fans have zero behavior for good reason. You know how long it's been to this team. So, this fan base has had something to be proud of. Like, I remember the Alexi Stred days.
I remember before that when it was just it we don't even need to bring all that up. It's just I hope that Knicks fans can continue to allow the team to play basketball at MSG. But quite frankly, I don't know if there's going to be a home arena left.
Oh, you don't want to bring back Clarence Weatherspoon and Howard Isley? No? No, no, no.
We don't got to go down all the way down there. Okay, Christian. Now, you said it. I said it.
I think most people honestly would say the same thing. Now, nobody expected the Knicks to be up 2-0 against the Celtics. Are we really just Jason's a one Jason Tatum away from getting out of this slump and the things can go straight to hell for the Knicks?
I don't know. You know, this is what I wrote for the New York Daily News coming into the series, right? Because Cade Cunningham had the Knicks number all regular season. Some are 31 points shooting 50 percent from the field, 50 percent from three. You know, but the difference was in those games, Mikel Bridges was the point of attack defender who was really chasing around the floor.
And we knew coming into the series that, you know, OG Ananobi was going to be the guy who got that assignment. And obviously, Cade struggles from the field, right? I think he averaged five fewer points. He's shooting 18 percent from three-point range during the series. I'm sitting there thinking, hmm, if OG can make Cade look like this, then what can you do to Jason Tatum? And if Mikel isn't exerting all of his energy chasing around the point of attack, then what can he do to Jalen Brown? And if you cut the head of the snake off, that just leaves you with a bunch of shooters out there who are going to have to hoist up some threes as opposed to having your two All-Stars create offense for you. And on top of that, the Knicks were, you know, bailed out a little bit with this injury, with this illness to Chris Asperzingis because Asperzingis, the last time he was healthy, had eight threes, I believe, against the Knicks.
So not having to deal with that has been a bonus for them. But in terms of just why you go out there and you just bet the farm in terms of franchise record, 212 and a half million dollar deal for OG and it'll be five draft picks, which is anyone talking about draft picks now? Is anyone even concerned with giving up first round picks now for Mikel Bridges in the moment? Sure. Yeah.
You wave, you press the big red button. Why would you trade your entire future? This is why you do it. Because all roads to a championship lead through Boston and to get through Boston, you got to get through Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown. And that's what the Knicks have been able to do with OG, with Mikel. And with Big Mitch, I got to give Big Mitch his flowers because before he came back, the Knicks were a bottom 10 defense. And the second he came back, they become a top 10 defense.
Why? Because this man, number one, he's just a deterrent. He doesn't have to block a shot to patrol the paint. Number two, he's crashing the glass on both ends of the floor. And number three, it's just the fact that his presence in the paint, people are looking at all these three point numbers like, oh, why are the Celtics shooting so many threes? I promise you it's because they don't want to have to go in there and challenge Mitchell Robinson. He's good on switching out onto the perimeter. This is why you don't trade him. I was talking to him for a story I wrote yesterday. You know, he was saying, hey, you know, he tries to tune out all the trade chatter that he lives in his own world, that you see what he posts on social media, that he doesn't really care about a lot of these things. But at the end of the day, there was a real chance that Mitch wasn't on this roster after the trade deadline because there was uncertainty about his injury timelines.
And then it kept getting pushed back. But at the end of the day, they knew it was going to be a perfect fit alongside Kat. And lo and behold, look at what they've done now on defense with him on the floor. Christian Winfield covers the New York Knicks beat for the New York Daily News. You talk about Mitchell Robinson and the New York Knicks are looking very healthy right now. But one criticism is their lack of depth, the use of that depth by Coach Tom Thibodeau. That's not something we've heard about over the past two games or really throughout these playoffs. Is Tom Thibodeau getting a little bit of a break right now?
People always want to say he's driving people into the ground. Listen, you have to prepare guys for this type of grind, right? I think Jalen, I asked Jalen in Detroit how he's going to, how he's prepared to be able to even go through a lot of these battles. And he goes, hey, you know, thankfully I played for a madman like Tom Thibodeau who's going to run, who's going to play us heavy minutes because now in the playoffs, these guys are ready. Mikel Bridges played what, 50 minutes the other day and he still looks like he's in better shape than Jalen Brown. And that is what Tom Thibodeau has said all year. He starts the year with the end in mind. He wants guys to be ready for the long haul that is the playoffs. And sure, is there a criticism that, hey, the way he approaches minutes lends itself to injury?
Fine. That is a fair criticism, but guys get hurt for reasons that are completely unrelated to minutes distribution anyway. The NBA is like that. Guys get hurt off freak accidents. They get hurt off just collisions with other guys. Injuries aren't always directly correlated to minutes, right? So there's two sides of the argument here, but the undeniable fact is that these guys are able to play these gritty, tough games. They're able to have energy left in the tank because this is what they've been trained for all season. They've been playing these minutes.
This isn't anything new, right? If you go to the playoffs and you're not used to playing 42 minutes, 43 minutes a game, then you're going to be grinded down. You're going to be worn down by the end of the game. Look at a guy like Mikel Bridges. Mikel Bridges seems to get better as the minutes pick up, right? He plays his best basketball in the fourth quarter when everybody else is starting to run out of energy.
It doesn't make sense until you realize that this is what they've had to do all year. So, you know, you can criticize the minutes if you want, but it's working for Tom Thibodeau and his end for the bench. I mean, every team is cutting their rotation for the most part in the playoffs, unless you're OKC or you're in Indiana where you have the luxury of playing 11 guys. The Knicks don't have that luxury. After the Mitchell Robinson campaign and Miles McBride, you're left with Landry Shammet, Precious Ochoa, P.J. Tucker, Ariel Hocordi, Delon Wright, you know, guys that you kind of would look to in a pinch. But if you've got a dedicated eight-man rotation and you trust that rotation, then go with it. Look at what the Celtics did. They played eight players as well. They played Luke Cornette, Christos Porzingis and Peyton Pritchard off the bench. They probably would play Sam Houser if he was healthy. But, you know, Tibbs has his rotation. He trusts it and they're up 2-0 right now.
So you can't really you can't really argue with Thibodeau's method. Christian Winfield here with us on the JR Sport Reshow Coast to Coast. And we got a big game nationally televised, not even on ESPN, but ABC on Saturday afternoon. What do you think this game is going to look like? We know the Garden is going to be rocking. The celebrities are going to be courtside. There's going to be a lot of energy in the building. I think just by judging off of history, this can be a little bit of a letdown with a lot of hype.
What do you expect on Saturday? You know, quite frankly, the Knicks have not been the best home team, especially in the playoffs. The two games that they lost were at home. You know, they played well on the road. They need to find a way to protect home court, especially against a Celtics team that, you know, the numbers, 85, I think 86 percent of teams that take a 2-0 lead in the playoffs go on to win the series.
Right. And the Celtics are reigning champions. They're defending champions.
They're trying to repeat. I expect the Celtics to come out. But at the same time, I expected them to make an adjustment after Game 1. When you go 15 to 60 from downtown, I expect you to do something a little bit different or at least have a different approach. They go, what, 10 or 40 in Game 2?
Like, they need to figure something out. And I think that Joel Missoula is a good enough coach to where he's going to adjust to what the Knicks are doing. I also, I'm expecting, I don't, this isn't, you know, I'm not breaking any news here or anything like that, but I'm expecting Kristaps Porzingis to come back and play more than what he played, 14 minutes.
The other day was 3 or 5 from the field for 8 points. I'm expecting him to come back. He's going to have to because he, I think he's the key to saving their season. The Knicks have done a terrible job guarding, especially the pick in Pop 5. And that's where Porzingis can really get at him. But if he's not good to go and play long stretches, this is a Celtics team that's going to have to dig deep. And quite frankly, the Knicks have had their number, but the issue is they've only had their number after they decide that they want to, you know what I'm saying, pick it up after being down by 20.
And I've asked every player in the locker room yesterday, do you guys need to just spot them a 20 ball at tip off? And like, no, we have some issues that we need to fix. So they've got a couple of days off here to try to nip those issues in the blood. But at the end of the day, that's been one of the next biggest problems this year is just been consistency over the course of the game. They have not become a 48 minute team, but they are a 12 minute team in the fourth quarter. And when the going gets tough, the Knicks are tougher. So we'll see if they can protect home court on Saturday. Yeah, listen, man, nobody wants to have to win a game by going down 20 each and every game.
Hey, Christian, final question for you, man. Is there a beat reporter for the crowd of crazy people out front of Madison Square Garden on seventh? Is there like coverage there for the fans and the police? Or is that just like a social media area? You know that that I should run that up the up the ladder for the New York Daily News.
That's something I would love to do. The fans are ridiculous. I'm sure that if there's a if if the Knicks win a title, I'm sure that they'll have me crowd surfing somewhere trying to trying to write a story because they sent me when they had the protests over at Barclays Center, they sent me and I went on a whole citywide tour with a bunch of people and ended up being one of the best things that I ever wrote.
So if there's a crazy situation outside of MSG, when they if they sweep the Celtics, your boy will be on top of it for sure. Okay. Yeah, I did see a Spider-Man with a Hennessy model. So I was a little a little concerned about what was going on out there. But you sure that wasn't you dressed up? That's that wasn't you? No, Christian. No, no, no, I'm not. I don't.
I don't daylight as Peter Parker. What is he? What is he in the daytime? He's a college student, right?
Yeah, I don't know what he's going to NYU talking to Mary Jane. I don't know what he does. No, he's not. He's not.
He's not a radio host in the daytime. No, no, that's. Listen, Christian, don't don't don't put rumors out here. Okay. That's enough.
Enough of you, Christian. Tell everybody where they can find you and your work with the Daily News. Oh, man. If you if you go to a bodega and pick up a newspaper, if you if your corner store has the Daily News, you go to the back page. If there's a Nick's story in there, then that's me right there. Any New York Daily newspaper, you look for you for Nick's coverage. I'm there also New York Daily News dot com Twitter, Chris Splash.
Yeah. Anywhere you look for Nick's content. Also, if you're if you're on inside, you're looking at TNT, you might see one of my tweets pop up there. They brought me up because I called the Knicks being losing that game. But when the when the Celtics were up 20 and they came back and won and Josh Hart had some comments and then that made it on inside the NBA. So anything Knicks related, I'm your guy. But if you the old fashioned way is go to your store, grab a New York Daily newspaper, go to the Knicks section and you'll see yours truly. Hey, Christian, we appreciate you. We'll see what the Knicks do the rest of this way. Okay.
Yes, sir. Thank you for having me, man. All the time that Christian Winfield beat reporter covers all things New York Knicks for the New York Daily News. Their fans, Nick fans are just different. You know, in most cases you tell somebody, hey, act like you've been there before. No, not the Nick fans. They've well, it's been a long time.
All right. And they act completely like they have lost their minds. It's like, hey, we won game one in the first round of the playoffs and it's a party and this is like act like you've been there before. You know, it's like Yankee fans don't do that. Like there's an expectation even I mean, maybe not now, but there's an expectation of Yankees that was supposed to win, supposed to win 90 plus games, supposed to go to the playoffs, go to the World Series, and then maybe we win it. Hasn't happened since 2009. But Yankee fans act like it. One victory in a postseason is just whatever. Not the goal. Nick fans, on the other hand, it's like they need a reason to celebrate.
Like rabid animals that have been just kind of left inside and now they've been let out the cage. Have a little bit of dignity. Not Nick fans. If they win on Saturday, avoid the air. If you're in New York, avoid the area of Madison Square Garden. It's not going to be good.
Okay. It's the JR Sport Breeze Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Speaking of not good, let's let's go from let's go from New York to Los Angeles because there's a Celtic star, a legend. This man has had to take a very long walk because the Celtics couldn't get the job done. I'm going to tell you who this Celtics legend is on the other side of the break and why he is walking 20 miles is almost a marathon. I'll tell you who it is on the other side of the break.
Also, the Pirates, they made their manager take a walk out of the building today. And we'll get into both of those things on the other side of the break. But right now it's time for a news flash on the Infinity Sports Network with Rich Ackerman. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief. It is the JR Sport Breeze Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. Hey, thank you so much to Christian Winfield from the New York Daily News joining us in the last break to talk about these New York Knicks, who have a 2-0 series lead against the Boston Celtics. Game three will be Saturday afternoon in New York City.
If the New York Knicks win, please believe that New York City will be off the chain for a lack of a better term or phrase. This portion of the show is sponsored by Hyundai. The Hyundai Getaway Sales Event is going on now. Get deals so right it almost feels wrong. But don't wait.
Visit your local Hyundai dealer and do it today. 888-710-4ISN is the number. That's 888-710-4ISN. Listen, folks, the New York Knicks won last night. We know that. New York Knicks won the first game.
We know that. But in between games one and two, Boston Celtics legend Paul Pierce, who now works at Fox Sports and does podcasts and all these things like a lot of other people. Paul Pierce made a bet.
And he basically said if the New York Knicks win game number two, he was so confident the Boston Celtics would end up winning game number two. Paul Pierce said if they don't, he is going to walk to work. He said he is going to walk barefoot from his house to the studio out in California. He posted a photo last night. He said that this would be a 20 minute walk.
Or excuse me, a 20 mile walk that would take eight hours. And apparently he did it. He said if the Celtics lose game two, I promise you I'm walking here tomorrow, 15 miles in my robe, no shoes on bare feet. He says you got a better chance of walking out of the studio and seeing a dinosaur than seeing the Celtics lose.
Well, welcome to the world of sports media. Paul Pierce actually documented his his travels today. Now, I don't know if this man really walked 20 miles, but he was on social media kind of documenting what he said.
Listen to what he said earlier. This is him walking out the house. He's like, listen, I am a man of my word. This is crazy, though. I can't believe this.
See, he's done me out here like this. I'm sweating. So I'm about like four miles in right now. So I think I got like another 16 miles.
They're going for an hour and a half right now. So I keep my word. OK, that's that's him. He heard him. He's four miles in. Now I saw a photo. I think he did have some type of slippers on.
I mean, there's no way in hell this man was walking barefoot through Los Angeles County, which is no shoes. That is that is one quick way to die. OK. Anyway, at some point in time, this is how you know, it's all all entertainment.
For some reason, of course, randomly, maybe Kevin Garnett just happens to be rolling by Paul Pierce as Paul Pierce is on this 20 mile walk. Listen to KG. OK, they're going to take it right there. I have to leave the studio. I'm out, Lord. I'm out. I'm out. I'm halfway there.
Man, you be careful out here, man. That is great. Yeah, they host a show together. It's where his seat belt was as he walks down the street. OK, I mean, the last time Paul Pierce was involved in any type of stunt, I don't know if it was a stunt, but he was on social media hanging out with those strippers and smoking things. He got fired from ESPN, but strippers and smoking, I guess, is fine for Fox anyway. Paul Pierce, he he kept on walking until he couldn't walk anymore.
This is show business, right? Apparently, Paul Pierce to the shock of anybody. He actually did get to the studio. And let's just say he wasn't on foot. The legs are shot.
He's going to pop right out of this wheelchair. Yeah, that's right. Oh, there you go. Let's give it up for Paul Pierce. OK, yeah, the last time we saw Paul Pierce in a wheelchair, it was because allegedly he had to go take a poop in the playoffs.
Go ahead and Google that if you don't remember what I'm talking about. Botcher, did Paul Pierce really walk this this 20 miles? You think he walked 20? How many Uber's did he have in between this? I think he actually did it. I call me crazy. I actually think he's a man of his word here because the amount of social media clips I'm seeing here on Instagram live and everywhere else, I think he just recorded himself live streaming walking to work.
What do you have like? I mean, he's he's I can't even say rich. He's wealthy. He is just walking down the street with phone chargers. Yeah, you got a portable charger and you probably could get help doing this. Somebody could drive by and bring him a charger, right? Yeah.
Now, this is what I thought about because I I know it sounds crazy. I see most of what I see on on the Internet. I'm not sitting around watching TV. What the hell show does he come on and what time does it come on? Good question.
I think it's Fox. Yeah, we know that. That's one. Yeah.
And he is on. It's called Speak. Is it the show Speak for yourself? Is that what I've heard of that? I did on Google.
It's listed as Speak. OK, but Joy Taylor and everybody else. Yeah. But what time what time is it? What time would this guy have to leave his house to get there? Come on. So I think I think he did leave like 2 a.m., 3 a.m., right?
Because he watched the basket. Well, I mean, I guess it's different. You know, it's the West Coast, but. He left his house at 2 a.m. So it's weekdays at 5 p.m. Eastern, 5 Eastern, so that we would have to let two in the afternoon on the West. To take it back eight hours, you said, right?
So that's 12, 4 a.m.? And he didn't he didn't stop. He didn't grab no breakfast. He didn't stop. He didn't pee. He just just just walked eight hours.
OK, you could stop somewhere like Starbucks or something. He's 47 years old. He's well, he was an elite athlete, even though he didn't look like one. He wasn't carved out of stone. Yeah, he could have did it. Good for him. Now, he did lie. He said he was going to do it barefoot. And now do you believe he did it barefoot? Of course he did. No way.
No way. That's that's dangerous. He would have maybe would have died. I mean, he would have had a glass on his foot. He would have needed a tetanus shot.
And it's a lot. I would have been more impressed if he did it barefoot, OK? If he did it barefoot, I'd be questioning his sanity. He's already insane for doing in the first place, but barefoot is even worse.
Yeah. Good for Paul Pierce. He learned his lesson, I guess.
Yeah, I guess it's reasonable if the show's at 5 p.m. Eastern. He could have he could have done that walk. Good for him. Entertaining the people. Congratulations, Paul Pierce. What did he get? Nothing. He got attention.
Oh, yes. Speaking of attention, somebody else who had to do a lot of walking, got a lot of time to walk now are the pirates. They fired their manager, Derek Shelton.
The pirates. If you don't watch their games, good for you. If there's one thing you do know is that they suck. I mean, the season just started. They got a record of twelve and twenty six. They're on a seven game losing streak. They've only scored five runs in their last five games. And as we all know, in the world of professional sports, you can't make the owner take a walk like the coach has to take a walk.
The manager has to take a walk. They get the boot. I mean, it's not Derek Shelton's fault that the offense sucks. It's the fact that they don't have offensive talent on the team. I feel bad for the diehard pirates fans.
There's a lot of them out there. I wish you could fire Bob Nutting instead. That's the owner.
He's a nut. It's the J.R. Sportbreeze Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. Eight, eight, eight, seven, ten for ISN. That's eight, eight, eight, seven, ten for ISN. What's the furthest you've walked? You walk California, you walk Los Angeles County. We'll get into that on the other side. Hey, we got another basketball game, Warriors Wolves. Don't move the J.R. Sportbreeze Show.