It is the JR Sport Brief show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you to everybody all over North America for being tuned in and locked in. You can be down South, Midwest, East Coast, everywhere. I don't care where you are. Thank you for being here.
And thank you to our producer in New York City, Liam Flint. Anyway, the show gets started every weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. You can always listen on the free Odyssey app, your local Infinity Sports Network affiliate. You got Sirius XM?
Oh, that's real simple. Channel 375. You got a smart speaker.
Ask the speaker to play the Infinity Sports Network. Oh, it's fun. Where you been last hour? We've already been through a lot.
The show just got started. How about this? College football playoff? That seating system with the buys and the conference championships? No more.
It's been abolished. And instead of going by conference champions and them getting buys, we are now automatically going to go to who the hell has the best record as it should be. Congratulations to the college football playoff committee for actually doing something right. We talked about the New York Knicks disaster against the Pacers last night.
What a what a choke job of epic proportions. We heard Shay Gilgus Alexander talk about his family. Good for him. He thanked his wife and his newborn for the inspiration.
I'm happy for him. I mean, it's who doesn't love love? Everybody loves love.
If you don't love love, then I don't I don't know what to tell you. You belong in a Disney movie. OK, so I like Sunday, the Disney movie, some raggedy ass angry person that doesn't love love some grump. And then at the end, they find love. I think they made a movie about that. Hey, Liam, then they make a movie about that, that old man in a balloon. Wasn't he angry and grumpy? Yeah, that was up. OK. Yeah, that was that the premise of the whole movie. He was he didn't know what love is and he found. Wait, no, that's not right. Well, he died.
Yeah. His wife passed away. And then I guess he was trying to refind that love. And I guess it just ultimately came became a love for life.
Oh, look at you. I was going to say that he fell in love with the dog. But no, right. No, that would have been weird. Wasn't the dog an integral part of the movie, though? The dog and then the Boy Scout that came knocking on his door asking if he needed help walking the street.
Right. That little round child. Wasn't that didn't he go missing or something because of the balloon? Well, I would assume that his parents were probably worried about him, the fact that he escaped on a floating house with a million balloons underneath it. I didn't know cartoon kids had parents, but you learn more every day. It's just a lot of cartoon kids. They just be outside. They don't have families.
Nobody cares about them. Cartoons are weird. I may be going off on a limb here. Do you remember Muppet Babies? I know of Muppet Babies. I didn't really watch it, though. OK. We never saw the lady's face in Muppet Babies.
We only saw her legs. Oh, it's like the the adults in the Peanuts. Right, right.
You never see it, though. It's like it's like the next door neighbor from. What's that? Oh, my God. What's that sitcom from the 90s with Tim Allen?
Home Improvement. Oh, yeah. You never saw the next door. You never saw it.
Was it Wilson? I don't know. You never saw him.
Well, no, you hurt. You saw the top of his eyeballs. You never saw his body. He's just the guy peering over the fence. Right. Yeah.
I think his name was Wilson. Yeah. Wow.
That's clever. I'm going to do an entire show where you. Well, I'm doing a radio show. You don't look at me unless there's a live stream.
I don't have it connected right now. Yeah, that was dumb of me to say, hey, I'm going to do a radio show where you can't see me. Well, no crap.
Yeah, no doubt. But I'm going to create a sitcom. Well, you don't see the characters. I'll figure it out.
Nobody at all. I don't know. I got to think about it.
What do I do? Just put a good looking lady there. I don't know. Well, that'll attract the eyes. That'll be the hook. Right. Yeah.
And then you see no other characters. How that works, I don't know. But I'll figure it. Oh, well. Never mind. It's still an early idea.
You got time. You know, the ideas that are coming to my head are just they're not appropriate. So we're going to we're going to we're going to move along from this one. We're trying to be family friendly here, Liam. OK, we're trying.
Yeah, we're trying good. We just heard Jay Gilgus Alexander talk about his family. You know, hey, how about this?
Here's an easy transition. And about 20 and not even in about 40 minutes from now, we're going to have a chat with Christian Winfield from the New York Daily News. We'll talk about that disaster about the New York Knicks last night.
But let's stick to the family for a second. Let's let's do that. This is an interesting time on the sports calendar. Got the Stanley Cup finals or playoffs going on right now, we got the NBA playoffs going on in another month.
We're going to head towards the championships for both. People are going to get ready for the draft and then we're going to move into the summer. And then it's a time for baseball.
And then you're going to blink. And then the NFL. The players will be back in training camp.
But as it stands right now, nothing but OTAs. We got teams out of just getting ready to work right now, bringing in the rookies, bringing in the vets. It's nice to see you got new coaches trying to lead their teams. And one of the new coaches I think a lot of people are excited for in the NFL right now. Is Ben Johnson in the Chicago Bears. People look at what Ben Johnson did with the Detroit Lions and helping to turn them around a leading Jared Goff and all that offensive talent. Meanwhile, you got old gambling Dan Campbell out there. This guy's never saw a fourth down that he wanted to kick. Ben Johnson was a hot commodity.
Now Ben Johnson is leading Caleb Williams, who had high expectations being the number one overall pick coming out of USC. Unfortunately for the Chicago Bears last year, they stunk. Matt Eberfluse was terrible. Guys making jackass calls on Thanksgiving for the entire world to see. Couldn't explain it. Got fired.
They went five and twelve. Meanwhile, Caleb Williams had to look at Jayden Daniels, almost take the Washington commanders to the Super Bowl. But before he was even drafted, thinking about where he wanted to go. We got a book that's coming out in a few months, and both Caleb Williams and his dad were on record of saying they did not want to be drafted by the Chicago Bears. They debated about whether or not they wanted to even move forward and start trashing the city, trashing the team in hopes that the Bears wouldn't take him. The general manager, Ryan Post, said, ah, that's not going to work. Doesn't matter. We're going to take you anyway.
Suck it up. He wanted to go to Minnesota. He wanted to play for Kevin O'Connell, a former quarterback in the NFL. Quarterback whisperer. But no, he got drafted by. The Bears.
His dad was quoted as saying. The Chicago Bears are where quarterbacks go to die. Kyle Orton, Jake Cutler, Mitch Trubisky, Mike Glennon, Justin Fields looking for a second third lease in life. With the New York Jets. Quarterbacks die. In Chicago, it's still looking for a guy to go out there and throw 4000 yards for the first time. What are we doing? This is an NFL where everybody just throws the ball all the way all over the damn place.
Not them. And so Ben Johnson responded to this. He was asked, oh, your quarterback didn't want to be here. And now he's here and now you're here.
And so what the hell are you going to do about it? Because naturally, you have to ask him, even though, you know, he knows and has nothing to do with everything that's taken place in Chicago Bears history. But you have to ask the question. And Ben Johnson, he had an answer. It's come to my attention that the quarterbacks been out in the media over the last week. And just to get out in front of that a little bit, I just want to say I wasn't here last year. And so I can't speak too much in terms of what it was like before he got here and when he got here last year. But for my four months on the job, he's been outstanding to work with.
And and we just are focusing on getting a little better every day. When you hear it uttered as and from the article from the upcoming book that Chicago is where quarterbacks go to die from a distance. Did you see that? And what do you think when you hear that? I love it.
I love it. I love the opportunity to come on in and change that narrative. That's where great stories are written.
And so we're looking to write a new chapter here. 2025 Chicago Bears and looking forward to the future. Man, I like that guy. Like that's the type of coach I could get behind. Like Ben Johnson sounds confident and clear and what he wants to get across. And I mean, if he's this clear with the media, I know he's just as clear. And communicative when it comes to talking with his players.
Sometimes you get these coaches that they barking and maybe they're grumpy like Sean Payton or Bill Belichick. Ben Johnson knows what the hell he wants. And so I actually think this is a good look for the Chicago Bears.
I feel confident there's no way in hell barring injury. The Chicago Bears have to fixing the offensive line and getting wide receiver help and drafting tight ends. And they're going to be better than five wins. And let's face it, I mean, last year was I'm not going to call it a fluke. But it was the best case scenario for the Minnesota Vikings with Sam Donald for them to pick up 14 wins. They're not doing that this year. OK, the Green Bay Packers. OK, another team. They got wide receiver help. I mean, Josh Jacobs was basically asking for it. They're going to be good, but I don't think they're jumping over anybody. And then we have the team that he left the Detroit Lions. They'll be good. Aidan Hutchinson. God bless him. He said today that he is full steam and ready to go. Is anybody looking at the Lions as a team that's just automatically just going back to a championship game?
I don't think so. The NFC North is a ridiculously deep division. And the Chicago Bears, I think they've got the right guy to lead it.
Who would have thought Ben Johnson gets the job? And one of the first things that he would have to answer, I'm not even going to call it one of the first controversies, but one of the first topics of conversation. It's about his quarterback. And his dad. Like, you would think that this is the Tyrese Halliburton situation.
We'll talk about that. You would think that this is I mean, we all got family that just gets in the way sometimes. I just say whatever the hell is on their mind is screwing things up.
You probably got friends like forget family. You got a friend that you just can't take everywhere, right? You take that friend out and they say the wrong thing.
So the wrong person. Can screw up a night. A meeting. An event. You got that friend that you just can't take everywhere because they messing you up.
You can't do that. So I mean, dammit, before Caleb Williams even got into the NFL, his dad is talking about where he wants him to go. So he ended up in Chicago anyway. And good luck to him in that regard. Speaking of family messing things up, this just reminds me of what we discussed last night. We got all these athletes making all this money.
And I get it. Your family is influential. Wouldn't you want to lean on some of the professionals as well? Like Juan Soto like when Michael Michael K on ESPN basically is like Juan Soto is getting seven hundred sixty five million dollars. He wanted to stay with the Yankees, but his family told him to pick the Mets like we got all these fans.
Do they manage money? Like what's the deal? Listen to this. I'll say it right now. And it will be denied.
Of course, it has to be denied. But I talk to people that I respect. He wanted to return to the Yankees. That was his preference. His family said, you're going to the Mets. His family felt very comfortable around Alex and Steve Cohen.
And they said, you're going to the Mets. And he is a guy who listens to his family. Damn. OK. All right. Fine. I get it.
I get it. You listen to your family still getting seven hundred sixty five million dollars out of the way. I think the New York Yankees offered like seven sixty seven thirty. What difference does it make at that point? Damn. This man turns twenty seven years old in October. Couldn't tell his family how I want to play for the Yankees.
You all go play for the Mets like I don't know. Is this money? Liam, am I missing something? Is it not his money? It's his money.
But I I don't know. I feel like Michael K's being a little bit of a salty Yankee guy. Oh, he's being a rabble rouser, huh? I just don't think that.
And you said it. I think Juan Soto is enough of a grown up to make that decision for himself. I think maybe his family played a significant role in that decision. And he ultimately was.
Yeah, my family's more comfortable in Queens. But I think it ultimately came down to what he wanted to do. I don't know, man. I don't know. And this is this is coming from a bias Mets fan. So let me just put that out there. OK.
Bias Mets fan. OK. I'm just I'm just saying, hey, my family is the United Nations, man. I got Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Haitians, Jamaicans. My family is the United Nations.
And I'll tell you something. Everybody is real familial. And I could see certain instances. I could see a family from the Dominican Republic saying, you know, they roll deep and they roll tight. And it's just like, hey, if we're rolling this way, you rolling with us or not. And I could see a family steer. And no matter what decision, I could see a family steering a baseball player who's getting ready to make three quarters of a billion dollars.
That's crazy. It's a way he's playing. I mean, the world will never know unless Juan Soto also comes out and does a book, which I don't think will happen. I mean, he's going to cash his checks and. I guess one day he'll find it. Yeah.
Liam, he'll find happiness with the Mets one day. Just not right now, right? Yeah. Listen, it's still early. It's not even not even Memorial Day yet. So let him settle down. He's getting used to his new apartment. He'll be OK. My God. What does each check look like for him?
What you think every other week? What do you think he's getting? He's getting a couple of million, three, a couple mil each check. Damn.
You're right. Wow. Probably close to three.
I was going to what? Three mil each check. Yeah. If they're doing biweekly.
Damn, bro. I'd be happy, man. I'd be happy. I'd be I'd quit after a year. OK, I'd be done. You could only pay me for that week. I'll be OK. Oh, and then you quit after that. Three million. I'll be OK for a little bit. Take three million.
Now you return, huh? Run into the wind. Stack them up. Taxes hit hard. OK, hit hardly. You just got to invest correctly. OK, you were you doing crypto?
No, never. OK. All right. Isn't that how you get rich quick? What are you going up in jail like that other guy? Yeah. Yeah. You might end up in jail. You might lose all your money. You never know. Oh, right. Yeah.
You could either buy a house or three houses or you could lose the only house that you have. Welcome to the crypto kind of unregulated like college athletics is what a what a world we live in. It's a wild one.
The J.R. Sportbreeze show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Eight, eight, eight, seven, ten for ISN. That's eight, eight, eight, seven, ten for ISN. We are going to take a break. Hey, how about this? In another 15 to about 25 minutes, we're going to have a chat with Christian Winfield from the New York Daily News. We'll talk about the New York Knicks, who are certainly looking for a break. They don't have game two until tomorrow. We'll talk about what went wrong last night for the Knicks and what they need to do to even up this series.
But when we do take a break. Yeah, we've talked about families. Shay Gil gets Alexander, Juan Soto's family, Caleb Williams and his dad. We'll get into Tyrese Halliburton's dad.
That's a that's another issue all by itself. But when we come back, we'll talk about another family, the ersays. You know, last night, unfortunately, we had to share the news on the passing of the Indianapolis Colts owner.
And since he has passed, we are finding out more about this man and how kind he was. I'll tell you one thing I appreciated about him after he went after a former NFL owner. But we'll hear from Tony Dungy and talk about Jim Irsay. We'll get into the New York Knicks.
We've got a lot to do. It's the J.R. sport brie show Coast to Coast on the Infinity Sports Network. It is the J.R. sport brie show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. Yeah, we've done a lot of talk about families today, and I guess maybe you'll see your family.
You'll see your friends this weekend, the holiday weekend, Memorial Day weekend. Shay Gil gets Alexander wins MVP thanks his family. You got the head coach, the new head coach of the Chicago Bears, Ben Johnson. He has to talk about the Williams family.
Get into the fact that, hey, by the way, this man's family didn't want anything to do. Caleb Williams with the Chicago Bears. We talked about Juan Soto and his family, whether or not they wanted him to be a New York Yankee or a Met. Michael K is like he wanted to be a Yankee. His family wanted him to join the New York Mets. Family, family, family in the NFL world. I mean, outside of what's going on with the Chicago Bears. You know, yesterday we found out about the.
The Earth's a family. We found out that Jim Erce passed away at sixty five years old. He took over the team from his dad when he passed away in nineteen ninety seven.
His dad bought the Colts and took him from Baltimore, moved them to Indianapolis in nineteen eighty four. Jim Erce moved on from being the general manager to taking over, you know, about a decade or so after that. And Jim Erce, unfortunately, we've learned over the years he had some issues with substance abuse and we found out at one point in time, he had to be almost resuscitated in his own home, reportedly.
It was some rough going for Jim Erce in the latter years of his life. He was sixty five years old. He took over the team. He was the youngest owner in the NFL when he took over for his dad. He was thirty seven years old when he took over. This man played football at SMU for the Mustangs. Yeah.
Before the death penalty. He also was a power lifter. Jim Erce was out there moving 700 pounds. OK, so he was an owner, but he put them claws on you.
Some paws on you is some bad things that were going to happen. And at one point in time, you might remember this. Tony Dungy.
How could you forget? Tony Dungy was the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. We had Peyton Manning out there in his prime years from 2002 to 2008. Tony Dungy is also one of the nicest men that you will ever meet in your entire life.
I say that and speak from experience. Not only did he win the Super Bowl with the Indianapolis Colts. He also won the Super Bowl as a player.
And he's an all around good guy. You won't find too many folks who have an issue with Tony Dungy. And so he told a story on pro football talk about how nice of a guy that Jim Erce is. You know, typically I'll tell you about how cheap the Cincinnati Bengals are. I guess there are reports via the Players Association that they make the families of the players wait in the parking lot in a tent.
Rain, wind, sleet, hail. It gets cold as hell in Cincinnati, Ohio. Obviously, the Bengals, they apparently do not care. Jim Erce doesn't sound like something that he would do. Listen to the story that Tony Dungy told about Jim Erce as it relates to Tony Dungy and his dad.
Well, but I got there in 2002. My dad was getting up in age and my dad would come to all the home games. And Mr. Erce saw him at a couple of away games. So he said, does your dad go to every game?
And I said, well, he tries to go the ones that are close that he can get to. So if he wants to go to every game next year, tell him to just come to Indianapolis and fly with us. And 2003, he flew my dad on the team plane to every single away game. And my dad passed away at the end of the year.
And my greatest memory was sitting with him and being with him at away games just because Jim Erce, that's who he was. Yeah. Well, that's called being a human being.
And some people don't have have empathy or understanding of such a thing. Like I would have never known that if Tony Dungy didn't tell that story. And I think that that says enough about who he is. I mean, Tony Dungy told another story at one point in time about how when he was leaving Tampa Bay to become the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, that without being asked or prompted. That Jim Erce made a donation to his his charity based in Tampa Bay because he didn't just want to steal the head coach from the city and leave his foundation, which he knew he cared about.
Leave him hanging. He just he just gave a donation like you don't have to do that. And when you hear some of the horror stories about some of these these owners and what they do and what they don't do. And I'm not talking about fixing a locker room or building a family suite. I'm talking about the scum of the earth type guys. People like Donald Sterling.
I mean, let's think about. Former Washington owner Daniel Snyder. This man was known to.
Just sick on old people who couldn't afford this season tickets anymore, like going after them with legal action. He reportedly tried to pimp out the cheerleaders. And you know who didn't stand for that, didn't appreciate it, even while it was being reported.
It wasn't it wasn't fully vetted at that point in time. Just a couple of years ago, Jim Erce called out Dan Snyder. Yes. One NFL owner called out another. Jim Erce basically said, listen, man, if Dan Snyder is acting an ass like this, then he needs to go.
I got daughters. He's pimping out the cheerleader. Like, what are we doing? This is what Jim Erce had to say.
This is courtesy of WUSA TV in the Mid-Atlantic. Well, I just think what's happened in the workplace, you know, having three daughters, seven granddaughters. To me, it's something that I think serious consideration has to be given to the removal.
And we have complete authority to do that. Of him or just the family. I think in general of of him being removed and selling the franchise.
Wow. You really hear that? You want to know why you really hear that? Because one billionaire doesn't want to go after another one.
And God forbid some guy's dirty secret comes out and he uses that against him. And so typically these guys just kind of shut up about their business. I guess Jim Erce said, I ain't got no dirt like that. OK. Yeah. Overdosed. Yeah.
I had a problem with prescription drugs. Yeah. I guess Jim Erce said, you know what? I ain't got nothing to hide. You're not going to beat me over the head.
I guess as simple as that. Rest in peace to Jim Erce. You know, I found out so much more. I knew he played football. I knew he he weight lifted. I didn't know to that degree at some point.
At one point in time, this guy was moving 700 pounds. I had no idea. And now you hear some of these these great stories. And the Indianapolis Colts say they lost a solid human. It sounds like when it comes down to an owner, all the best to the family of Jim Erce. It's the J.R. sport re-show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We're going to take a break.
We come back on the other side. Well, we're going to stick to talking about Indianapolis, but not the owner, not the football team, which, by the way, they're going to stink trying to figure out that quarterback situation. Sorry.
I had to be honest. Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones. Don't be surprised if, well, you got two quarterbacks, you got none.
Let's just put it that way. When we come back, we're going to have a chat about the Pacers and the Knicks. Christian Winfield is going to join us courtesy of the New York Daily News. I want to ask him, can the Knicks turn this around? Do they have enough depth? Is Tyrese Halliburton the new boogeyman for the New York Knicks?
Is he the new Reggie Miller? The Knicks didn't have the knack last night to have a chat with Christian Winfield. The New York Daily News on the other side of the break is the J.R. sport reshow on the Infinity Sports Network. And right now it's time for a news flash with Rich Ackerman. It is the J.R. sport reshow on the Infinity Sports Network. Now we're getting ready for game two of the Western Conference finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Shay Gilgus Alexander will get his MVP award in a few minutes. And then also, well, Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves. But last night, game one of the Eastern Conference finals, we saw something that, well, we've never seen. We've seen a team blow a 14 point lead with less than three minutes. I can go on and on. The New York Knicks collapsed last night at the hands of the Indiana Pacers.
This is one of the worst collapses that you will ever see in your life. The New York Knicks is their first time back to a conference finals in 25 years. Not the way that you want to start to talk about what they did, how the Pacers can continue to roll on, what the Knicks need to do to adjust. Joining us right now from the New York Daily News is my main man, Christian Winfield.
Christian, how are you? You know, I'm tired, man. We had a late night last night, obviously, with the game that went late. And then you had to get up this morning, get up to Tarrytown for Knicks practice. Long day. But here we are. This is the dog days of the season and we're in it right now.
And the Knicks got some work ahead of them. They spent today looking at the film. And that film was the messed up part is that the film was good from middle of the second quarter to pretty much the last three minutes of the fourth.
And I'm sure we're going to get into it. It just all fell apart. And now they're trying to put the pieces back together. Well, we saw the choke sign from Halliburton. The Knicks certainly choked is there's no doubt about that. You were up at the practice facility earlier today. What was the vibe from the New York Knicks? Were they kind of still all miserable from last night? Absolutely. You know, this is and this team is one that will follow Jalen Brunson's lead.
And he's someone who likes to be level headed, who's not going to get too high when the winds are piling in. It was not going to get too low when the losses are creeping up. But, you know, just to lose in historic fashion, really blowing a 14 point lead with less than three minutes left, blowing a nine point lead with about what, 50 seconds left or so in the game, losing in overtime, having Tyrese do the do the choke sign point at Reggie on your own home floors in the first Eastern Conference Finals game you've been in in the last 25 years. You know, a lot of emotions.
Right. And that's not something that you just get over in a day. But that's what this team has to do, because if you don't get over it, you're going to find yourself down 0-2. And if you go to Indiana down 0-2, they're going to start breaking out the broomsticks, because that's the team that's going to run and run and run and put fresh bodies on the floor. And that's what the Knicks are trying to figure out. They're trying to figure out how to combat Indiana's speed, their depth.
And this is one of the things that I wrote about for the New York Daily News walking into this series. You know, Stiles make the fights in a lot of these playoff series. And, you know, the Knicks, when you just look at their team, that starting five is loaded. You could put that starting five side by side against anybody in the NBA and feel good.
But once you go down to sixth man, seventh man, eighth man, ninth man, tenth man, that's where things start to get a little iffy, especially considering Tom Silverdale doesn't like to go beyond seven or eight guys. Right. Rick Carlisle is the exact opposite. You look at the Pacers. They've got Tyrese Halliburton. They've got Pascal Siakam.
And Siakam's not, you know, a 1A star, like you consider Karl Anthony Towns to be in that in that kind of cloth. But they've got another six or seven guys that they have no problem cycling in and out of the rotation. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing their pace. We're seeing their speed. We're seeing their depth start to, you know, wear on the Knicks team. And now these games are coming fast. They're used to having maybe two days in between some of these games.
No, there's one day off. That's why the Knicks aren't on the floor today. They're watching film and they're trying to figure out what they can do because the Pacers are going to run 100 miles an hour. And the Knicks are going to have to find a way to slow them down.
Christian Winfield covers the New York Knicks for the New York Daily News. You talk about the depth of the Indiana Pacers. How did the New York Knicks combat this or can they? Is it too late?
That's a great question. Number one, one thing that Tom Thibodeau said that stuck out to me today was that, you know, the Knicks like to play fast. And I think back to them scoring 143 points against the Memphis Grizzlies, 143 points against the Sacramento Kings. Those are two of the faster paced teams in the NBA.
You know, the offense worked yesterday. If you talk about hanging 135 points on a team, you know, the issue is, number one, you've got one of the most clutch teams in all the basketball with the clutch player of the year that just fell apart down the stretch uncharacteristically, right? You're talking about a team that came back from down 20, 20 and 14 in the Boston series and just below the 14 point lead. Really, they were up 17 earlier in the fourth quarter. But, you know, I think number one, they've got to lock in on when guys get hot.
Right. And this has just been a theme all season. I'm thinking back to, I'm sure you saw when, and I mentioned this earlier, when Sandro Mamu Kelisvili scored 34 points off the bench for the Spurs and won that game. That's just because the Knicks couldn't put a guy on the hot hand.
It happened. It's been a constant all year. When you think to that OKC loss and Aaron Wiggins comes off the bench and hits five threes. We think about an earlier loss to the Boston Celtics and Peyton Pritchard comes off the bench and scores 30 points. You know, it's game plan discipline that this team has. And it's unfortunate because for 40 some odd minutes, the Knicks played a really good basketball game. But that's what happens when that pace creeps up.
And when the paces are running, running you up and down the floor, you start to lose a little bit of your attention to detail. Right. The communication was something that they said that falls off when you guys are getting tired. Right. If you're looking at minutes and distance traveled, I was looking at everything in terms of Mikhail Bridges running nineteen thousand three hundred feet on the floor yesterday, which is more than any player in these in these conference finals in Game one so far. Obviously, they went to overtime. But if you just look at the spread of how that distance is spread from the Knicks lineup versus how that distance is spread to the Pacers.
They've got guys that are circling that are there just like, you know, cycling in waves. Right. So the Knicks have to figure out a way to combat that. Maybe Tibbs goes deeper into his bench.
He spoke about that yesterday and everything is on the table, but they've got to find a way. Otherwise, you've got to look at this tape from yesterday and say, hey, we were up 14. We did a lot of good things. We just got to hold on and finish the game. They didn't do that yesterday. And now they're down 0-1. Well, they're down 0-1. And we saw what Neesmith did.
I think that might be a once in a lifetime thing. You would hope that he doesn't carry that around. You wouldn't think he. Not to that degree, you know, for the rest of the series to see that guy go out there and shoot like that. And we've all seen Halliburton, who's been voted by some some of the players as being the most overrated guy in the NBA. We've seen him make some big time shots. Is Reggie Miller Jr., is he now the most hated guy with the Knicks? Has he now jumped over Trae Young?
Yeah. Well, I mean, Trae Young can't even really be in the conversation until he makes the playoffs again. It's been a while since he's played some relative basketball.
So we've got to get he's he's in play in purgatory. We can't even mention Trae Young right now. But to your point, yes, Tyrese Halliburton, you got to think about number one. And I asked Tyrese about this yesterday. He said, you know, him and Jalen are really good friends. And he doesn't really want to say that because they're going at each other right now. But, you know, they played on the FIBA World Cup team together.
And then they had this whole WWE thing where somehow they end up in the same ring in Smackdown. And that's after they go through, you know, a second round playoff series and Halliburton eliminates them in seven. And now you come on the court and you steal home court advantage and you, you know, you hit a huge shot at the buzzer.
And now you're running around like a king in New York. This is a rivalry. This is what I wrote for the New York Daily News yesterday. This is a rivalry. And, you know, this is one of the great rivalries where, like, you know, oftentimes we don't get to see things like this, where it's an all star guard and all star guard at the same position. And especially in the NBA today, where these guys aren't even guarding each other.
Right. You've got Bridges guarding Halliburton and Neesmith and Nembhard guarding Brunson. Those possessions where Halliburton and Brunson are guarding each other, you can see the guard stand up and they're just waiting for something to happen.
So, yeah, this is. And then on top of that, he broke out the choke, the chokehold, right? Like the nerve of the guy to come into MSG and do that after hitting what he thought was a game winner. Imagine if that was a game winner and not a game tie in shot.
That would have been a backbreaker. So, yeah, I think this will be one of those rivalries that that are going to last for a while, even if these guys are friends. Now, the question is, can either these two teams get by Boston or Cleveland next year?
Because I think we both think that those teams underperformed. So we'll see what the what the future holds. But I think for now and any time these two teams meet in the playoffs, even in the regular season, you know, I won't say they'll be ill will, bad blood, malice or whatever you want to call it. But the stakes are going to be high. These two teams do not like each other right now.
And Christian, last question before I let you go. New York as a city. Has it been doing too much? I mean, we got a firefighter getting garbage thrown out and we got street signs named after some of the New York Knicks. We got fans sitting on skyscrapers and billboards like the fans. I know it's been a long time, but it feels like the Knicks, the city, the fans are doing too much.
They haven't won anything yet. First of all, who's our mayor again? Our mayor is Mr. Do too much.
Eric Adams. Right. That's number one.
So I think it's in line with what he would what he would do. But but at the same time, I mean, you got to think about it. Number one, this is the first time, as we mentioned, this team has seen this level of success in the last quarter century. Right.
So you kind of got to milk the moment. But at the same time, these guys haven't really done anything yet compared to where it is that they want to go. And this has been something that they've been talking about recently. It's just like, you know, we know the fans are really excited for our success, but we want to win a title. So we kind of got to put all that outside noise and leave it outside while we focus on the task at hand. I think they've done a good job of that.
They haven't really been trying to feed into too much of that. To be quite frank, I spent yesterday before the game asking every single player that was in the locker room what their reaction was to getting a street sign named after them. And some of them, some of them got thought it was A.I., you know, that's what Landry Sherman, Landry Sherman thought it was A.I.
Ariel Hockporty didn't even think it was it was real until we convinced them that it was real. Hockporty, they gave him a street too. They gave everybody a street? They gave every they gave this PJ Tucker Terrace.
Everybody has a street in New York City right now. There's 15 players on the Knicks and there's 15 streets. But that goes to show you how important the Knicks are to the city. But at the same time, it's just the conference finals appearance, right?
It's not like you made the finals, not like you won the finals. So I see the argument for, yeah, the city's doing too much. But I mean, what would you expect?
We've got Mr. Outside as our mayor. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Next thing, are the Knicks going to hang a banner in October, too? They're going to hang a banner for this?
Whatever happens? They might, man. They might hang preseason banners at this point. No, they won't do that. So they know that the bar is set at the title.
Right. And they know that all this other stuff going on is semantics. They also know that yesterday was a blown opportunity. And we've seen this team bounce back from disappointing, brutal losses in the past. I expect them to come back and remind people why they are the New York Knicks that beat the Boston Celtics in the first round, that were beating the Boston Celtics before Jason Tatum got hurt.
I expected to come out with their foot down and secure a convincing victory tomorrow. OK, here we have Christian Winfield from the New York Daily News. Where's your street sign at? Christian, where's yours? Oh, man, they need to make me one somewhere, man.
I don't know. We'll see where I go. But, you know, I'm from Bed-Stuy, so maybe I do enough for my career. We'll get one in Bed-Stuy. But until then, you know, I'm kind of like the Knicks.
We've got a long way to go before we can think about hanging any jerseys in the rafters. I was going to say somewhere on Wall Street. Let's change Water Street to Winfield Street. That might make... Hey, listen, that sounds good, man.
That also sounds real luxurious. Hold on. Now, when you find out you've got a Water Street plug, let me pull up while you see what we've got going on.
It'll cost you a couple mil, but we'll see, Christian. See you later. Hey, tell everybody they could keep up with you and all your great work with the New York Daily News.
For sure. Well, if your corner store, Bodega, still has newspapers and you go grab a New York Daily News and you turn it over to the back cover and you see the back page, nine times out of ten, if the Knicks are in the playoffs, they're playing, that's my story. So you can always find me in a copy of the New York Daily News. You can always find me at NewYorkDailyNews.com slash sports basketball Knicks. And you can always find me on Twitter at Chris Splash. That's with a K. And, yeah, you can also always find me at Madison Square Garden when the Knicks are playing. All right.
Let's see how many more games they have in front of us. Christian, enjoy the ride and get some rest. We appreciate you for taking the time. My man, thanks for having me. No doubt about it. That Christian Winfield, as you heard, covers all things New York Knicks for the New York Daily News.
Now, yeah, I still can't get over the jerk. They would they gave everybody they gave all the Knicks a street name. Imagine being the 15th player on the bench.
You don't even play. And they gave you what do you do with it? Do you request it? Like, do you do you hit up the New York Knicks when the season is over?
Y'all just got eliminated by the Pacers. Do you hit up the equipment manager? Go, hey, can you see if the New York City Department of Transportation will just give me that sign? I want to you know, I'm going to gift it to my mom.
Mike, maybe you do that. That is great. Liam, did you know everybody got a sign?
Everybody? Yeah, I saw the P.J. Tucker one on a meme account and I thought the same thing that it was A.I.
or Photoshop, but apparently it's real. Has P.J. Tucker played a minute or a second on the New York Knicks? I think he got some garbage time at the end of the Boston game.
I think maybe. Oh, my God. That's important. I see more of him in his shoes than I see him playing basketball. P.J. Tucker's days of just playing basketball consistently in the NBA days over.
Why, everybody got a street sign? That's crazy. It's the J.R. Sportbreeze show on the Infinity Sports Network. We're waiting on the start of the Western Conference Finals game two between the Timberwolves and the Oklahoma City Thunder. When we come back, we're going to talk some football. We're going to talk some quarterbacks. Don't move.
