It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Much love and many thanks to everybody tuned in and locked in all over North America. Happy Thursday to you. Whatever you're at, whatever you're at, whatever you're doing, I hope you're well. I hope you are absolutely amazing. I'll be hanging out with you for the next four hours. Pat yourself on the back. This is when the show gets started every weekday, 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific.
I'm in Atlanta, Georgia. Thank you to our producer holding it down today in New York City, Liam Flynn. And thank you to you for listening because if you're not here, if you're not tuned in, there is no show.
Thank you for being here. You can always listen on the free Audacy app, A-U-D-A-C-Y. You can tune in on your local Infinity Sports Network affiliate.
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Ask it to play the Infinity Sports Network. We've got a lot to get into over the next four hours. How about this? Last night was a disaster for the New York Knicks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Halliburton said they choked.
Oh yeah, they choked in a historic fashion. Christian Winfield covers the New York Knicks for the New York Daily News. He will be here next hour. We've got some college football news I'm going to share with you in a few minutes related to the college football playoff seedings. We'll get into that. And then there's still news just all over the place in the NFL. Last night we found out who's going to be in hard knocks and the Buffalo Bills. We might have additional word on Aaron Rodgers now.
I don't know. Hey, Mike DeFabo, he covers the Steelers for the athletic. He's going to come through and have a chat with us about that Aaron Rodgers guy. When the hell is he going to show up?
Is he going to show up? And a lot of other things going on in the NFL. Ben Johnson talked about Caleb Williams and his dad. Charles Barkley talked about somebody's dad in a positive way. He said that John Halliburton needs to be let back into the arena. Well, we had some positive words about Jim Irsay and Tony Junge is a lot of positive words have been spoken about this man.
Unfortunately, we learned yesterday he passed at 65 years old. So we got a lot to get into. Oh, yeah, that's right. And Shea Gilgas, Alexander and the Timberwolves, they oppose each other again.
Or should I say Oklahoma City? Yeah, that's a lot to do. You want to be a part of the show? It's simple. Here's a phone number. 888-710-4ISN.
That's 888-710-4ISN. If you're a human being. If you're on the Internet, if you're just wasting your time, I don't know. I am also there, hopefully not wasting my time.
You can find me all over the place. I am at JR Sport Brief. I mean, we sat here yesterday and waited on that damn basketball between the Knicks and the Pacers. Predicted to be a good one. That's what it's been so far. And then the Knicks went out there and blew it.
We will get into the New York Knicks momentarily. Let's get this out the way. There's some good news.
Well, before I do anything. Liam, how are you, man? You doing good? I'm doing well, JR. And how about yourself? Man, I can't I'm alive. I can't complain.
Now, Liam, I know you're in New York. Are you a Knicks fan? I would consider myself one, yes. Consider? What does that mean? You consider yourself?
That means yes, right? Yes, I am actively rooting for the Knicks. Growing up, it was always between the Thunder and the Knicks.
But I jumped off the Thunder bandwagon a few years ago and now I'm on the Knicks one. Damn. Front runner. You're a front runner then, too, huh?
Yeah, a little bit. OK, I got you. I'm not mad at you. So who left the Thunder that made you quit? Was it Durant or Westbrook? Who quit? It was the Lou Dort game in the bubble. That was the last one. Oh, my God. That was the last game I watched as a quote unquote Thunder fan.
OK, the more the more you know. So at least you made it to work today. You're not pained by what happened last night.
Barely made it to work. But yeah, it was unfortunate to see. Seeing the way that the Knicks played to the Pacers pace, no pun intended, was a little concerning. And then blowing that lead in the fourth just yeah, big gut punch. Yeah, that was a giant gut punch.
Anytime somebody can go out there and successfully and he almost failed at doing it mimic Reggie Miller back in the 90s. That is a that's a miserable situation. If you're a fan of the New York Knicks, it's it's a little bit or a whole hell of a lot of deja vu. That is nothing but joy. If you're a fan of the Pacers, there's a whole lot of misery if you're a fan of the New York Knicks.
So we'll get into that in a bit. Let's talk about some positivity. I was thrilled. I was happy earlier this afternoon when news came through about the college football playoff. Let's take a listen to some breaking news. Good news, if you asked me, courtesy of CBS Sports HQ. We've got breaking news and just CBS Sports HQ or the college football playoff committee has approved a major change for the twenty twenty five season.
And this has been confirmed by our very own Brandon Marcello. So this year's playoffs will feature straight seeding, eliminating first round buys for the four highest ranked conference champions. So instead, the top four seeds, as determined by the committee, will receive first round buys regardless of their affiliation with leagues and conferences. So the change was unanimously approved by the 10 FPS conferences along with Notre Dame. Good. Good.
Good. It's enough that they expanded the field already to 12 teams. It's another thing where we got Mountain West Conference teams just jumping in front of squads like, I don't know, Penn State. OK, we saw Boise State and Arizona State get automatic buys into the second round of the college football playoff last year.
And I'm not going to say they got smoked, but they kind of sort of did get smoked. Arizona State showed a little bit more life. But Penn State beat the hell out of Boise State. Penn State had the beat the hell out of SMU before they even got to Boise's.
Like, what's the point of all of this? I mean, everybody is already by expanding to 12 teams. We've already taken a massive dump on conference play. I mean, we got conferences like the Big Ten that now crisscross all over the United States of America, going from Los Angeles, UCLA to Rutgers, New Jersey.
That's basically New York City. That's not a conference. That's that's a league. That's like a professional league. College sports has already said, who gives a damn about the conferences? Let's just go out there and make the money. Everybody has combined everything so damn much.
What difference does it make? And so why should it make a difference when you get to the playoff? You know, some conferences are stronger than others. It's even crazy to think about the world we live in right now in college sports. We don't we don't got a power five. We got a we got a power four in Notre Dame.
This is crazy, but at least for them, it works. You got 12 teams. Just just see them the best of the best. The conferences no longer had any real value or meaning anyway.
If you're going to rip off the Band-Aid, then do it all away. And let's also be honest, college football right now, they're at 12 games or excuse me, 12 teams. Matter of time before they say, well, come on, let's even this up a little bit more. Let's go ahead and get to 16. And why not?
At this point in time, people are going to complain about anything. Let the best play the best and keep it moving. By the way, I'm glad the NFL didn't do this. The Detroit Lions actually yesterday said, hey, let's keep the divisions because they weren't going to get enough votes.
The Detroit Lions wanted to do the same damn thing. Forget divisions. Forget what happens in the divisions. Let's just see the playoffs, not by who wins the division, but by who has the best record. So why have divisions outside of scheduling purposes? Is it the point of playing in a division to beat the living hell out of your opponent in close proximity to you? Shouldn't the Ravens, the Steelers, the Bengals and the Browns, shouldn't they just beat the snot out of each other for supremacy? Come on, every now and then you're going to have an anomaly like last year. You're going to have a team like Minnesota who ends up with 14 wins.
You're going to have a team like Detroit who's Super Bowl contenders who doesn't get that number one spot. Well, beat them. That's why you play them in the whole damn conference. Just beat them or your division.
Go out there and beat them. And so I'm glad the NFL didn't vote on this and I'm glad college did, because we shouldn't see lesser teams. I mean, if I could say one thing and Liam, tell me if you disagree in the NFL, is everybody on an even keel?
No, but they're all pros. They're playing in a 32 damn team league. When you start talking about college football, the conferences and the level of play in every conference is different.
The SEC versus the Mountain West and the Big Ten. It's not the same. I don't think it was fair to just say, oh, well, you won your conference. Let's just get you a bye.
I thought that was crap. Yeah, it's apples to oranges. Each NFL team is owned by a family of billionaires or a billionaire, and then you've got some college schools that barely have an NIL budget. So it's it's hard to compete when you're a small market school. Yeah. Let the small market teams figure out something for themselves.
OK, I don't know. Maybe they can go ahead and have I don't want to say a minor minor league, but look, there's so many changes in college football that have already taken place that will continue to take place. I gather in about a month or two months from now, we're going to have more more news as to how college football players get paid. Do the schools now have to pay them money? How is this going to affect the NFL and its collectives?
The president of the United States of America said, I want to open up a commission. He says, ah, Nick Saban is going to help co-lead and he's like, ah, not right now. College football is a mess. It is college football is like your crazy ass on with the good food. OK, college football is like going to that family member's house. Well, you know, the food is going to be good, but, you know, something crazy and wild is going to happen. Maybe the house is a mess.
Maybe they got that dog in the backyard or the front yard that you don't want to deal with. But, you know, once you get inside, it's all fun. It's all love.
But how much of it do you want to tolerate? I love football of college football. I love professional football. I like violence, organized violence. That doesn't include me because I hit nobody. I don't want nobody to hit me. But I watch. I love football.
Also needs some structure to it. I'll tell you what I hate. The stupid ass politics of it. The NCAA basically abandoning any type of rules and structure just so they could keep money. And then when the government came on knocking and said, ah, this ain't fair, you can't just have free labor out here.
The NCAA said, I we out by. It's like leaving the kids outside to govern themselves. It's like you have recess, no rules. Kids won't come back inside. Kids start making side deals.
You got one kid who wanders off to the grocery store to buy a pack of cigarettes. You got to have rules in place. There's rules. NCAA said, no, no, thanks. So we can't govern it.
Then you figured out yourself. College football is a mess. I love it, but it is a complete.
Waste right now and is going to be a messy waste for the next few years. But at least they got one thing right. Mountain West going to get in a buy makes no sense. The J.R. sport show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm just getting started. I'm just getting warmed up. OK. I just told you about one mess that was corrected in college football.
The playoff is now going to throw out the whole idea of awarding buys just because you want a conference. That mess has been cleaned up. We come back on the other side of the break. I'm going to tell you about a mess last night.
The New York Knicks. I know New York City is a mess. Have you been?
Well, Liam, you lived there. Isn't it a dirty mess? Dirty, smelly. Yeah. All the bad adjectives.
Yeah. Everything right outside of Madison Square Garden is dirty and smelly. And inside last night, the New York Knicks were dirty and smelly to how they did not finish out that game.
I have no idea. I told you next hour, we're going to be joined by Christian Winfield. He covers the New York Knicks for the New York Daily News. He'll be here and I'm going to ask him if he still has some stink on him. I know he went to the game last night.
We come back on the other side of the break. I'm going to tell you about these Knicks and how bad they stunk and how pitiful and pathetic they are. Look, if they lose this series just based off of that game last night, they deserve it.
In the words of Clyde Frazier, well, this is the opposite. The Knicks last night, they did not have the knack. We're going to talk about the Knicks. Of course, we got that other matchup. Western Conference Finals game two.
Let's see if the Minnesota Timberwolves can go ahead and fight back. We got Mike DeFabo joining us from the athletic to talk some NFL. We got Ben Johnson from the NFL, new head coach of the Chicago Bears. I mean, that's a tough division.
Speaking of divisions, the NFC North. Ben Johnson has some words for Caleb Williams and his dad. Charles Barkley has some words for Tyrese Halliburton's dad. We're going to talk about somebody's dad. Unfortunately, he passed away. And Jim Irsay, some positive words, a lot of positive words have come out.
Unfortunately, now that he is gone at 65, we learned this yesterday. We got a lot to get into. I'm just getting started. You want to call me?
You can do that, too. Here's the phone number. You ain't talked to nobody all day. Here's your chance. 888-710-4ISN. That's 888-710-4ISN. You are locked in to the JR Sport Brief Show on the Infinity Sports Network.
It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Last night. Oh, we talked about how smelly it is in New York.
Dirty and filthy. Well, last night, that was the attitude of New York Knicks fans as they had to exit Madison Square Garden. The New York Knicks and the Pacers, well, they put on a great show.
It wasn't a great show. If you're a fan of the Knicks, they ended up losing to the Pacers 138 to 135. This is one of those, I don't want to say once in a lifetime type games. But the Knicks and the Pacers, they typically put on a show in the postseason. We talked about this yesterday, 93 to 2,000.
They met like six times all time. And I think now as it stands right now, the Pacers lead got to be 23. Oh, excuse me, 27 to 22. The Pacers would lead the New York Knicks in playoff matchups.
And so that's rather close. And if you've got one team that comes out on top here in this series, then they're going to go ahead and take the lead. Maybe the New York Knicks.
Maybe, maybe not. At least maybe if they turn things around, they can make it even. But they blew a game in epic fashion. They blew a 14 point lead.
With two minutes and 50 seconds left in a game. They let Neesmith score 20 points in the fourth quarter. How? Like this guy seemingly was starting to knock down garbage time threes and it turned into real threes. He had six threes in the fourth quarter alone.
How? He had eight threes total. And nobody expected that. This just made no sense last night.
A matter of fact, it got so crazy. I want you to listen to this from the Pacers radio network. This is Neesmith knocking down a three to make it a two point game.
New Yorkers were pulling their hair out. Ball comes in. Shepard does give it to Halliburton.
Halliburton will drive it into the four court across the timeline. Left edge. Neesmith's been unconscious.
This time is three from the left edge. Cuts the New York lead down to two. Wow. And now New York will spend its final time out.
Wow. If that wasn't enough pain. I mean, you had Karl-Anthony Towns missing a free throw. You had OG and a nobody missing a free throw. You had Jalen Brunson couldn't play defense on anybody.
This guy had five fouls. And then you had Halliburton. This is why he's a great villain. Even Reggie Miller, who's a terrific villain, by the way. Reggie Miller was pointing at this guy like, that's my guy.
That's my guy. Halliburton hit a shot. Ran into the paint, ran back out, hit a shot. It bounced off. You know what?
Forget this. He thought it was a three. It ended up being a two. Listen to the game time shot that put them into overtime.
This is also from the Pacers radio network. Two point game, six seconds to go. Halliburton driving. He's in the lane. He nearly lost it. He backs up and unloads a three.
Oh, that did not happen. It hit the back of the rim. It popped high into the air and it dropped gently through the net. And the Pacers have the scoreboard shows one twenty five one twenty five. It's called a two point shot.
Man, you can't make that up yet. Ended up being a two point shot if it was a three. Oh my goodness.
The Knicks would have just lost right there and then they go into overtime and it looks like the New York Knicks are going to hold on to win. And they can't play defense and then letting them knock down more shots and then they're falling asleep at the wheel. It is terrible. Let me let me put it to you this way. And I do like numbers. Oh, you don't or you do. It doesn't matter. Listen to this.
A five year old could understand this. OK, listen to me very carefully. No team losing by nine points in the final minute of a game.
Listen to this. No team losing by nine points at the end of a game or overtime has won a playoff game since nineteen ninety eight. If you are ahead by nine points with a minute left. You won except for last night.
OK. This has occurred one thousand four hundred and fourteen times. OK. Fourteen hundred times until last night. The Pacers came back and won once once. This is crazy. Let's go back even further.
OK. You ready for this one? Since nineteen ninety seven teams leading by 14 points or more in under two minutes and 50 seconds were undefeated until last night. This was a massive choke job by the New York Knicks. Looked like they had the game in the bag. And he fell asleep at the wheel, which is not good. By the way, if you're driving, just if you sleep, you pull over, take a nap.
Safely. But having said that, we talked about how close of a series this should be between the New York Knicks and then also the Indiana Pacers. I expected to go seven games. I gave the New York Knicks the edge because they have Jalen Brunson, who, by the way, went out there last night and decided to drop 43 points. He did have five fouls, couldn't play defense the way he wanted to at the end of the game and risk of fouling out. And then I picked the Knicks because they got home court.
That's how close I think this series is going to be. You had Halliburton running around telling the New York Knicks that they choked. Halliburton. Let's listen to him. Why are you copying Reggie Miller?
You know everybody hates him. Everybody wanted me to do I was going to hold it for the right time. That felt appropriate.
And then, you know, they went to overtime. So we're going to save it for later. No, no, no.
Don't save it for later. Come on. The last thing anybody would want to be is, well, hated is Reggie Miller. You don't want to be hated like that guy.
Madison Square Garden. They were chanting, screw you, Reggie. Last season, they serenaded him. Imagine walking into a building and 20,000 people hate your guts. They can't stand that man.
And somebody doesn't seem like he can stand anybody. He is just perennially miserable. Tom Thibodeau, the head coach of the New York Knicks. I don't know if his own players like him.
Maybe make some time. Here's Tom Thibodeau in the happiest way possible explaining what the hell went wrong with his team. They can score the ball. You know, Nesmith got loose. Halbert had big shots.
You just can never let your guard down against them. No lead is safe. I forget. Forget Tom Thibodeau.
No lead is safe. He's a coach. He's going to sound miserable. And of course, the New York Knicks players are going to sound miserable. They choke this one away. Let's listen to the star of the New York Knicks. It's Jalen Brunson.
Hey, Jalen, give me an answer. What the hell went wrong? I can't really summarize it. Give them a lot of credit. They closed the game out like they've been doing it all playoffs. Just not really good on our part. Not really good on our part.
What a short answer. Jalen Brunson not known for his words. Known for his actions.
Josh Hart, he typically does a lot of talking. I think he has the perfect summary for what took place. Hey, Josh, what happened? Did y'all, were y'all speeding? Did y'all fall asleep at the wheel?
Please tell me. We didn't finish the game out. Like I said, we didn't run through that finish line. I feel like we defensively, we didn't have, we let off the gas. The intensity of physicality wasn't there offensively. We were playing slower, lower stagnant. And it looked like we were playing up and loose. So we got to make sure, you know, we don't make that mistake again. You know, obviously it's a tough one. We're all disappointed in it. But, you know, the series is not over after one game.
That's right. Every game is different. But if y'all going to play every game like that one, if it's going to be closely played like that, you just gave one away and maybe the Indiana Pacers only win one more game in this series.
I doubt it. I think the loser will win win three games because I think this is going to four. What an embarrassment by the New York Knicks and the fact that Reggie Miller was basically sitting courtside, providing commentary all throughout the damn game. It made it nauseating to even think about. Looking at Halliburton run up and down the court is like it's like watching baby Reggie Miller. This guy did the choke pose. He talks about the choke.
And one thing that this team can't do. And by the way, Neesmith is the guy. OK, I know what Halliburton did with that three point shot. It was Neesmith who came through and got the job done with all of them points and the threes. It just made no sense.
You know, forget Halliburton. Let's listen to Neesmith talk about 20 points in the fourth quarter. Six points or excuse me, six three point shots in the fourth, eight three point shots total. Reggie Miller never even did that for the Indiana Pacers. That's a playoff record.
Neesmith is the man. That's what he had to say about the comeback. It's always special. It's always fun. You know, this is what we live for. This is what we work every day for. Work so hard for us to perform and to show up in these moments. And, you know, we just continue to do it time and time again. Man, they had a win probability at one point of one percent.
One percent. And then Neesmith just started knocking down threes from everywhere. It's like a horror movie. And yet it's one game, but it helps set the tone. What are the New York Knicks going to do at home tomorrow night? Halliburton never won no championship.
Damn it. He was with the Kings. Kings don't know what the playoffs are. Neesmith ain't never won no title. This is a young Pacers squad getting up and down the court. Their head coach, Rick Carlisle. He has won a championship. He's witnessed this before. Maybe not this specifically.
Nobody's seen this. Merrick Carlisle says, listen, people, we got more to do. Remarkable resilience by our guys hanging in, finding a way to get the thing to overtime and then made enough plays.
But it's a long series. We're not going to get too excited about this. We got things to clean up.
They got things to clean up. You know, game two is going to be another war. Aaron Neesmith. This guy's like Michael Jordan last night. How do you have 20 points in the final five minutes of a basketball?
How do they let you do that? Foul the guy. I'm not an advocate for violence.
Elbow him one good time. That makes no sense. The New York Knicks deserve to lose last night. And if they lose this series, they deserve to lose based on what we saw yesterday. I still think we're in store for a great one. I think we'll still go seven games. And the Knicks, they can look at game one. For something that we have not seen ever in about 20, five years.
Oh, yeah. New York City, dirty, stinky, smelly. Inside of Madison Square Garden, dirty, stinky, smelly.
If you're a fan of the Knicks, if you're Pacers, I guess New York City smells like roses right now. Let's see what they do tomorrow in game two. Do everybody a favor. Close out the game. Hit your free throws. Play some defense.
Stop turning the ball over. I know Tom Thibodeau got three strands of hair on the top of his head. He might be down to one after last night. And all this man does is I don't know if he got a family or anything. I know he loves basketball. This guy's obsessive. He's holding on to that one strand. OK, the J.R. sport 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. I don't know if Tom Thibodeau has a family outside of a basketball. Maybe he got three basketballs in his house.
I don't know. When we come back on the other side of the break, we'll talk about some family because we have one basketball game last night. Tonight, we got Game two of the Western Conference Finals. Shea Gilgus Alexander is about to get his MVP award in front of the the loving public in Oklahoma City. Anthony Edwards is going to try to stop him.
Well, you know what? Let's hear from Shea Gilgus on the next break because he showed some love to his family. And speaking of family, it's a family affair with the quarterback situation in Chicago. We got Caleb Williams and his dad.
Don't forget Halliburton and his father. It's a family affair. I'll explain on the other side of the break. You're locked into the J.R. sport show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network.
And right now, this minute, this second is time for a news flash. Here he is. It's Rich Ackerman. It is the J.R. sport show on the Infinity Sports Network. 8 8 8 7 10 for ISN.
That's 8 8 8 7 10 for ISN. Reggie Miller. Tyrese Halliburton. I know they're not related. I know Cheryl Miller is not related to Tyrese Halliburton. I can see Cheryl Miller just busting his ass on a basketball court. I can see that.
But you've got two skinny dudes. Running around for the Indiana Pacers. Knocking down threes, being irritating, being annoying. It's like that annoying. I can't even say it's like you're annoying little brother.
I can't even say that. They're like that annoying kid down the block that you never want to see. Like, why are you back over here? Like, why we got to play with you? Because you live down the block? I don't like you. I don't speak from experience.
I'm just talking about things I've heard. Tyrese Halliburton, Reggie Miller, those annoying people down the block, that annoying family down the block. We all know one. Anyway, speaking of family, and a positive note, we know that Shay Gilgus Alexander, he's going to receive his MVP award tonight. Last night on TNT, it was announced that he is MVP. He's the second Canadian to win the MVP award following Steve Nash. Good for him. Not Steve Nash, Shay Gilgus Alexander. And, you know, he was with his teammates.
He was all cool, right? Everybody's wearing SGA T-shirts and he's like, yeah, yeah, I won and I didn't win last year. I won this year.
We want to win a championship. Thank you so much. Some of my teammates, you know, typical, typical thank yous. But then when he actually had the press conference in Oklahoma City, Shay Gilgus Alexander, he took it to a, he took it to another place.
This man thanked his new wife. I think that's what you, yeah. Liam, that's what it's called. When you get married, is it new wife or spouse? I don't want to be, I don't know.
I don't have one. How do you say it? Yeah, newlywed.
Newlywed wife? Yeah, that sounds good. Okay. Now I don't know because it sounds like, hey, he thanked his new wife. It just, it sounds possessive.
I don't know how it works in 2025. I think that's okay. Okay. I'm just making sure. I'm just making sure.
I don't want to, I don't want to be in the New York Post again. Anyway, hey, let's listen to Shay Gilgus Alexander thank his wife. Oh, she has a name. There you go. Hailey Summers.
Listen to this. Hailey Summers, thank you for everything you are for me, for our son Aries. You were the first person to show me what love really meant. What love really meant, what sacrifice really meant.
And I can't wait to spend the rest of this journey called life with you. Thank you for everything. I wouldn't be the man I am.
I wouldn't be the player I am. I wouldn't be the father I am without you. Thank you for that.
Thank you, everybody. Well, that makes me want to shut a tear. What about you, Liam? Do you want to cry?
Yeah, I was very emotional. Oh, great. Okay.
Me and you sound like two jerks. Way to go, Liam. Way to go.
No, that was serious or tried to be serious. Okay. Not bad. Not bad. Now I'm happy for the guy. Good for him. He got a wife. He got a kid. Changed his life.
I'm thrilled. Let's see how it translated onto the basketball court. And I heard she's an athlete, too, so I don't know.
Maybe in another 20 years we have another Gilgus Alexander running around? I don't know how this works. Yeah, I think she's a soccer player. And she played soccer? Oh, my God.
So what does this mean? That kid is going to be running up and down the court. Are they going to play? If they're as tall as him, they got to play basketball, right?
I would hope so. That kid is a baby baby, too. That baby looks like it's five months, six months old. It's a baby baby. Yeah, he had the pacifier in the mouth. He was being cradled. That's a baby. Yeah, that's a baby baby. But let me tell you, once that baby can stand up on two legs, I'm sure Shay Gilgus will have a basketball in that baby's hands, okay? And that goes without saying. Congratulations, Shay Gilgus Alexander. He didn't just go out there and thank his wife, his newlywed wife.
He decided to also thank his teammates because that's what you do. I want you to take a listen to Shay Gilgus Alexander and also listen to Nick Gallo with the question. It feels amazing. To get to this point, you dream about it as a kid. But to know and actually be in this position, it's hard to even fathom.
And I've said it before, with the guys behind me doing what they do every night alongside me, it wouldn't be possible. So the majority of it is for them. Oh, that's cool, man. That's nice.
You got to thank your teammates. I think he bought each one of his teammates. He bought everybody a Rolex, right?
Is that what he did? New Rolexes, yeah. Everybody got a Rolex. I mean, damn it, these athletes are now making 30 and 40 and 50 and 60.
You got Juan Soto, he's making 765. So the least you can do is buy everybody a Rolex, right? What happens if you don't like a Rolex? I don't know.
Brock Purdy, before he even got his brand new contract, the San Francisco 49ers, he was handing out Toyota trucks like great sponsorship. But if you accept the Toyota truck, do you not have to pay taxes on that? Why are you gifting me something that I now got to pay for? I don't know about that. Shay Gilgas Alexander, maybe he paid the taxes too, which would also be a gift. I don't know.
I'm not an accountant. This man won his first MVP. He beat Nikola Jokic. Shay Gilgas Alexander, he was asked, when did you know you could be MVP? Listen to this.
I'm not too sure. I always thought that I could be a really good player because I had seen what just putting your head down and working and controlling what you can control can do for you. And I made tremendous strides. I guess once the conversation started a couple years ago, I never thought this was going to happen. I never... I dreamt about it as a kid, but it's like, you know, as a kid, it's a fake dream. But as the days go on and you realize that you get closer to your dream, it's hard to not freak out. It's hard to not be a six-year-old kid again. And I think that's what's allowed me to achieve it.
I try to just not focus on it and just worry about what's got me to this place, which is just working hard and taking it day by day and trusting the people around me and trusting the things that I've done to get me to this place. He called it a fake dream? I get what he's saying. A fake dream to be MVP? I mean, I didn't play basketball. Who doesn't play basketball as a kid? Everybody on different levels, but I didn't have no fake dreams of being an NBA MVP at any point in my life.
But I guess when you come from a family of athletes, why the hell not? Hey, let's see what Shaquille Alexander does later tonight against the Minnesota Timberwolves. I said, I don't think these Timberwolves got enough size. I don't think these Minnesota Timberwolves, I don't think they got enough bodies. I don't think they got enough offense.
I don't think they're tall or long enough. I mean, Rudy Gobert. And he needs to be happy Draymond Green is not calling his games. Rudy Gobert had two points and three rebounds in the last game.
Come on now. Rudy Gobert can't hit a free throw. Rudy Gobert could barely handle a basketball under the basket. He could barely hit a layup if it's not a dunk or a lob or a tip in. It's tough for Rudy Gobert. Isaiah Hartenstein can move away from the basket. OK, Chad Holmgren looks like a gigantic deer out there.
I want to throw him a hamburger. That man can move away from the basket. Rudy Gobert serves no purpose outside of setting the screen if he is not near the basket. None.
None. Let's see what Julius Randall and Anthony Edwards can do against this team tonight, because it's going to be tough. I know the New York Knicks and the Indiana Pacers, they may beat the living hell out of each other. But when it comes to this series in the West. Yeah, not not not not so good.
I think the Thunder and go out there and handle Chris Finch, the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves. He's had to try to put all this together. He talked about what he saw on film. Let's just say it was all all ugly. There's a lot of good shots out there that sometimes we found them, didn't knock them down. Sometimes we didn't find them. Thought, you know, kind of shot selection in the second half really hurt us. Turnovers in the first half really hurt us. You know, not not too dissimilar for what we felt walking off the floor.
Yeah, man. Look, look, when you lose 114 to 88, all he saw was ugly. Like, how difficult is that? Like, how tough is it to just tune in and just see a whole lot of ugly and not not at all? So Anthony Edwards running around on a bum ankle couldn't go into the paint.
Jacking up threes from long distance. I saw ugly. I saw Rudy go bare blank. I saw Julius Randle only scored eight points on the second half.
I saw ugly. Meanwhile, you got a team who actually won the game. And that's how you know you're a winner when your coach is never happy. Coaches are never happy.
Always finding something wrong. Mark Dagnall, he wasn't happy with how they started, but how they finished. That's not how you start.
That's how you finish. Listen to coach. In the first half, like I said last night, I thought we were just a little clunky. I thought some of that was just trying to gain some rhythm against a new opponent. It's we've been playing the same team and really the same style for two weeks.
And they have to you know, it's the same thing. But it just took us a minute to calibrate to the game. And I thought we in the second half were much more decisive in our attacks of really everything.
They threw at us different lineups in different schemes and I thought we gained some traction there, but we'll need to continue to improve as we go through the series. Yeah, it sounds like a good coach. He's a great communicator, unlike Nick Suriani when he first got the job with the Eagles.
Sorry, Nick Suriani. I'm never going to forget that introductory press conference. He sound like a fish out of water. He sounded terrible. Let's just go ahead and put it that way.
Oh, yeah. By the way, speaking of coaches, congratulations to the son of Rick Adelman, David Adelman. He is now the full time head coach of the Denver Nuggets. We saw what he did, even though Michael Malone got the boot along with Calvin Booth. We now have to wait and see what they do with that general manager position. But the head coach is there to stay. The son of Rick, David Adelman, is now the full time head coach of the Denver Nuggets.
That's all good and well. Let me know what they end up doing around Nikola Jokic. Is he going to get some teammates? Can we get Nikola Jokic, somebody who can shoot a basketball? Is Russell Westbrook still going to be there? He got to play an option.
And Jokic is like, man, we ain't good enough to win no championship. Did you see what happened? Are you blind? I read the whole court.
Go ahead and listen to me. It's the J.R. sport. We 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. And we're a little bit more than an hour away. From Game two of the Western Conference finals between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Oklahoma City Thunder. We'll talk more about that game as we get closer. Next hour, we're going to have a chat with Christian Winfield from the New York Daily News. We'll talk with Mike DeFabo from the Athletic to talk some NFL.
And you know what? Let's talk some NFL on the other side of the break. We just heard Shay Gilgus Alexander cry about his brand new wife. Good for him. We're going to hear from the Chicago Bears head coach.
He's trying to get on the same page with a different family. Caleb Williams and his dad. The J.R. sport. We show the Infinity Sports Network.
