Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast Indy Steals Game 1 in OKC … WTF Happened? | With Zach Lowe About this episode The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe react to the Pacers stunning OKC in Game 1 of the NBA Finals (2:32). Then, they preview Game 2 and discuss fixes for OKC to turn the series around (30:31). Finally, they discuss the Knicks' coaching drama, who the new head coach could be in New York, and trade rumors (46:30).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Zach Lowe
Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo
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Transcript 14,654 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Whether it's hot yoga, over 100 degree weather, or too much sun. Gator Light, with a specialized blend of five electrolytes, was scientifically designed to help move fluids into the body faster for rapid rehydration. Shop now at retailers nationwide. Gator Light hydrates faster than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
0:30 Bill Simmons? The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I popped on the Prestige TV Podcast this week. We talked about The Better Sister, did a Rewatchables on Monday. It was a really good one. We did Out for Justice, the Stephen Scull classic. I had a great time. I think I'm turning this into New York Month on the Rewatchables, because we're doing Working Girl on Monday, which is a great movie from the 80s. Harrison Ford's in it, Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver. It's a really, really, really, really good New York movie, and just a good movie in general. It's dated in all the right ways. So that's coming Monday, so you have the weekend to watch it. I think it's on Hulu or Paramount. It's on one of those, and it's all over the place. You'll be able to find it. So check out Working Girl.
1:15 Bill Simmons? It's a really good one. And maybe we'll do New York Month. Lots of movies filmed in New York. Lot of options left. You have to wait and see. Coming up on this podcast, Zach Lowe and I decided to do a livestream right after Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals. And we were assuming that OKC, who was 9.5 point favorites on FanDuel, that they were going to easily win. And then Game 2 would be the game. That's not what happened. Indiana came back, and it was awesome. And we jumped right on YouTube Live after that. And everything we did was we recorded eight minutes after the game. So that's what you're about to hear. We're going to take a break. We're going to bring in Pearl Jam.
2:00 Bill Simmons? And then Zach Lowe and I breaking down an incredible game one of the 2025 finals. Next, let's go. This episode is presented by State Farm. It's no secret that great teams need great teammates. I've been saying this for years and when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, car and more. Whether you need an in-person or digital assist, they're ready when life hits you with a full court press. Get a game plan that helps fit your life. Talk to State Farm today. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state.
3:02 Bill Simmons? We were assuming it would be an OKC 20-point easy win. We would have to make weird OKC conversation because they're a hard team to talk about. And then Indiana, Indiana was like, I can't even speak. Indiana was like, we're Michael Myers. You thought we were dead. We fell out of the, out of the deck in the back and we landed on our back and you looked out there and all of a sudden we weren't there and we just keep coming and coming. And eventually we get you and you don't know what happened.
3:31 Bill Simmons? It's, I can't speak.
3:33 Speaker 02 I've come to the conclusion that I just don't get the Indiana Pacers. I don't get, I don't get how they do this. I don't get how there's at least one game every series where they do this. It's Halliburton at the end of every game with the last shot emerging. I mean, like the, the number of clutch shots he's made this season in this playoffs, this is like an all time legendary crunch time heater. And he didn't even play that well in the course of the game. And all anyone's going to remember is the last shot. This is. The Pacers are unbelievable and this might be, I mean, look, we've all seen thousands of basketball games.
4:06 Bill Simmons? No, don't say this was weirder than the Knicks game one.
4:09 Speaker 02 This is, this might be the, it was weird because it was weird the whole time. It was weird. Like, how do they have 19 turnovers in the first half and they're not getting run out of the building? It's 11 and between 11 and 13, the whole game. I don't like, it just felt like the strangest, it's the strangest game I've ever watched, I think, start to finish. And then the finish puts it over the top. Like, I don't, I can't wait to re-watch the fourth quarter to see what happened. Oklahoma City's offense. I just can't believe Indiana won that game. It's unbelievable. We have a series. We didn't, we were worried we're gonna, we got a series.
4:43 Bill Simmons? 19 turnovers and Lou Dort had five threes, I think, in the first three quarters. And if you just told me those two things, I would have assumed OKC won by 25. Halliburton was really tentative. It felt like Indiana was gonna lose by 20 plus various points in the game. OKC was doing the thing over and over again where they're up nine, they're up 11, they're up nine, they're up seven, they're up 11. And you just wait for them to put together that last 10-0 run when they're up 21 and the game's over. And it just never happened. I think they got up to maybe 15, right?
5:17 Speaker 02 13 or 15 was the highest lead and it just hovered. It hovered in that range from like 11 to 13, which is not really a range. It's just a small, small range. And they could never land the knockout punch. But then they go, it's back to eight, it's back to nine, it's back to six, it's back to eight again. And then all of a sudden, Indiana just won the game.
5:37 Bill Simmons? You know what the moment was? The moment where it was like, wait a second. Turner, first of all, Indy made, I think, seven, eight crazy threes where you're like, that's not going in. Then it would go in. But Turner hit that three, the, when he stepped to the left and he banked it. When he did that, I was on alert after that. It was like, oh, okay. All the, all the stuff I was working on for the rundown with Zach might be just going up in smoke, but, um, okay. So we took three field goals in the last four minutes of the game, Zach. That's weird.
6:07 Speaker 02 I didn't, I mean, I can't wait to watch the game again because I need, I, I didn't like the feel of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City's offense almost the entire game.
6:17 Bill Simmons? I meant made, not take, by the way.
6:19 Speaker 02 Uh, whatever.
6:19 Bill Simmons? You know what I mean?
6:20 Speaker 02 I, I didn't, I didn't like their, the feel of their offense almost the whole game. A lot of that is credit to the Pacers. Their transition defense was unbelievable to turn the ball over. I mean, it says 24 in the box score. I think that doesn't include a couple of like, like other like extra team turnovers or whatever. I think it was like 25 or 26. And to, to not get just underwater from an avalanche of transition points, but I, I didn't like, I mean, Shay had 38 and it was just, I didn't love his shot selection for a lot of the game and.
6:50 Bill Simmons? I thought it felt like he was just taking a lot of shots, like he had 11 in the first quarter. What'd he end up with 30?
6:56 Speaker 02 30 shots in eight free throws.
6:57 Bill Simmons? Too many.
6:58 Speaker 02 And some I didn't like, um, and it felt like they got.
7:02 Bill Simmons? I thought Nemhard really, look, he had 38 points, but I thought Nemhard was about as comfortable as I've seen anyone defending Shay. It was like one of those things where it looked like they've been playing against each other for 10 years. He kind of knew all his stop and start moves. Even in the end, when Shay got that last shot, that would have put him up by three and he missed it. Nemhard was right there the whole time with them, like pretty comfortable, I thought.
7:25 Speaker 02 And I just thought they were, they got slowed down a little bit and like not a lot of flow to their offense. A lot of possessions where it was like SGA, ISO, all right, Nemhard kind of stoned me, kick to J dub, ISO, and just sort of, just there wasn't a lot of flow. And I don't know if it's because they were playing just one big the whole time. And, and I, I thought this was a good one big series for them. Clearly they agreed. They start Kason Wallace over Hartenstein, but a lot of their best passing sequences are the big to big passing sequences and they, they sort of got those out of their, out of their game by the lineup choice they made. Maybe it was the pressure, the defense, the stage, the unfamiliar lineups, like a lot of five outlet, not unfamiliar, but just they clearly rejiggered
8:09 Speaker 02 their rotation for this. I didn't like the way their offense flowed, but still, could we just like, you mentioned the bank.
8:16 Bill Simmons? Can we say one thing about that rotation thing?
8:18 Speaker 02 Yes.
8:18 Bill Simmons? Cause I think this is the key to the game. Did you look at the rebounds?
8:23 Speaker 02 Oh, uh, it's, whoo. Okay, 56 to 39. I mean, it's not.
8:30 Bill Simmons? 56 to 39, Indiana. So, OKC goes one big instead of two. Indiana averages 39 rebounds a game in the playoffs. Like, if you're gonna say, what's the weakest part of their game? You'd say, I'm worried about the rebounds, especially against a team that plays double bigs. OKC starts one big. Down the stretch, they go small ball completely and give up a couple of big offensive rebounds to Siakam. I just, why is OKC changing what they're, they, OKC is 80 and 18 heading into this game. Why are they changing their lineups like this? Why are they going super small at the end of the games? Like, they're the heavy favorites. They're home. Make, why are you changing to conform to Indiana? I don't get that.
9:11 Speaker 02 So, I was surprised, I mean, I talked for two podcasts in a row about how I thought probably the one big lineups were gonna be a little bit smoother for the Thunder. I mean, lots of people made this point, too. It was not like an original point by me. Just because the Siakam matchup is a tough one for, for the OKC bigs and, and a, and a better one for J-Dub or Caruso or whoever takes the matchup. But I still thought that they would start, like, every team just starts how we start, and you gotta force us to adjust. And Richard Jefferson on the broadcast is making the point like, if you're Indiana, this is a win. Like, they've adjusted to us already. And I was thinking the opposite way. I think it was like a cold-blooded, we're going for the kill right out of the chute in game one.
9:56 Speaker 02 We're not messing around.
9:57 Bill Simmons? It did not work. They got 19 turnovers in the first half.
10:01 Speaker 02 If you, like, you, this is an all-time impossible outcome. 24 turnovers to six against the Thunder, and the Thunder don't win the game is just absolutely bonkers.
10:13 Bill Simmons? Plus 17 rebounds. Indiana somehow ends up at 24 assists. And it's notable that OKC has 13, because that's how it felt watching it. It felt like, uh, it was a lot of one-on-one stuff. I didn't feel like they were running enough. I actually didn't think. Like I had all these separate notes. I was gonna be, what can Indiana do better for game two when it seemed like they were gonna lose? The number one thing was it didn't feel like they were running. I felt like the pace, I thought they were psyched out by the defense and the steals and the turnovers and they weren't taking off on chances that they had, but it somehow worked out anyway and they won. I think there's things that they can do to be even better in game two. So when you say, we have a series, like, I bet Indiana
10:55 Bill Simmons? thinks we have a series too, because they're like, we didn't really play that well. We got, we rebounded well. Nobody in our team was really awesome. I mean, Nemhard, I thought, had a good all-around game, topping it some threes, but we weren't running like we should have and we were really soppy with the ball in the first half, because honestly, they looked nervous. And Halliburton even said in that mic thing, he was like, I'm finally getting my breath. I'm like, it's nerve wracking to be in the finals. You and I have been in the arena for those things. It's a different kind of tension, energy. Everybody's out there for three hours and when you're a young team, you feel it. They looked nervous to me and then they were fine.
11:29 Speaker 02 We're gonna be there soon. It's gonna be, it's gonna be exciting. Obi Toppin, five threes after a start in which he looked like a little bit overwhelmed for the first 90 seconds he was on the floor, ends up making five threes.
11:42 Bill Simmons? Two minutes.
11:43 Speaker 02 But you mentioned the bank shot three.
11:46 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
11:46 Speaker 02 Which was, by the way, it was a play that the Celtics run a lot, where Myles Turner fakes like he's gonna set a pin down for Halliburton and then Halliburton switches it up and sets a monster like double pin down for Myles Turner. That's a play that Tatum and Horford run all the time and he banks in the three. There was a lane violation on a Siakam missed three.
12:06 Bill Simmons? I loved it. By the way, watching it in real time, I was like, that's Scott, that's a lane violation on somebody. There's four guys in the paint right now.
12:14 Speaker 02 There's a tipped air ball, like an air ball that's tipped in or put back in by Siakam, just like, and by the way, and also you mentioned just the threes, like, Neesmith makes one in the corner on like a broken play where Obi Toppin's dribbling around and trying to find someone to give it to. Neesmith makes a three. Yeah, I guess Neesmith in the last, in the fourth quarter of a desperate game is just never, ever going to miss a shot again in his life. And the Pacers shot 39 threes.
12:42 Speaker 02 Forty-four percent of their shots were threes. That's way above their average, and I think it's an absolute must for them to have any chance to win this series. Increase their three-point attempts against a defense that will not give them up because they can test them pretty well, but they'll crowd the paint and make you shoot threes and take more, increase the variance. And they ended up taking, what, 39 threes compared to 30 for the Thunder? And the Thunder took a lot more field goals. That's, that's a big reason they won the game. Eighteen of 39, 46% on threes.
13:12 Bill Simmons? Well, tell me if you agree on this.
13:15 Bill Simmons? They were firing them with no hesitation, and I think it was part of their game plan, especially on the road where, where OKC's been such an absolute juggernaut. And I think Carlisle told everybody, you have the three, shoot it immediately. Because you could see these OKC guys flying out on the corners, on the top. But they, but, and I, I didn't feel like a lot of those threes weren't contested, right? Wasn't like they, some of the corner threes, I guess, were a little open, but for the most part, wasn't like they were wide open. It's 106-98 with three minutes left. Siakam misses two free throws in a row. Lane violation gets one. SGA makes two free throws. Neesmith hits the three you mentioned. J-Dub misses.
13:57 Bill Simmons? Nemhard, heat check, hesitation, hesi step back three.
14:02 Speaker 02 I got nothing going on. I'm just gonna make something happen and make a three.
14:06 Bill Simmons? I, I think it was on Lou Dort, too. So they're, all of a sudden, they're down three. SGA gets a two, they're down five. Nemhard gets free, Nemhard gets free throws. Siakam blocks SGA.
14:17 Speaker 02 Unbelievable play. And the Dort, somewhere in there, there's the Dort block where, where it feels like, okay.
14:23 Bill Simmons? On, on Neesmith?
14:24 Speaker 02 Yeah. Yeah, where it's like, that might be the defining defensive play of the game. And then there's another defining defensive play of the game.
14:30 Bill Simmons? Siakam offensive rebound, scores. All of a sudden, he's down one. J-Dub misses, out of bounds play. I thought he got, I thought Siakam got fouled. They didn't call it.
14:41 Speaker 02 I thought though, I thought that was a clear foul. I was, I was surprised that not only did Indiana not win that challenge, but that it was decided fairly quickly by the officials.
14:49 Bill Simmons? So OKC has the ball now. 22 seconds left with 14 on the shot clock. They go to SGA, who's been unstoppable this entire season and has always scored in this situation. Pretty much it feels like 90% of the time. Nemhard plays good defense, gets the stop, no timeout by Carlisle. And then Halliburton has one of those, I'm not sure what to do, and I'm going against an incredible defensive player and takes a long, long two double pump almost. Sort of semi double pump. What was that?
15:17 Speaker 02 I gotta, I haven't watched it again. I just went, I just like fell out of my chair and logged on to the Zoom and I don't really know what happened.
15:23 Bill Simmons? It was ugly, but he made it and uh, and there we go. 14, 10 and 6 for Halliburton and I felt like he was pretty tentative for most of the game. That's a pretty nice outcome for him.
15:33 Speaker 02 So, so you mentioned the J dub missed three. I want to go back to that. Um, that is um, 2 minutes and 20 seconds left, Thunder by 6.
15:46 Bill Simmons? Yep.
15:47 Speaker 02 If my notes are right and they're a little scribbly, um, SGA.
15:52 Bill Simmons? Cause you had a seizure?
15:53 Speaker 02 I don't know what was going on. SGA Dort pick and roll up top. Probably because Halliburton is on Dort, I'm guessing.
16:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
16:01 Speaker 02 SGA splits it clean, like Halliburton hedges. I think it's Halliburton. Again, we're doing this live. It might not be Halliburton, but it's whatever.
16:07 Bill Simmons? You're right. And he's going down. It seems like he's going to do an SGA Euro step layup.
16:11 Speaker 02 If you freeze it when he gets into the paint and he had just gotten fouled, I believe, and made two free throws like a minute before, 30 seconds before. He gets in the paint. Every single other Indiana defender on the floor is just like, fuck it. We're coming into the paint. Like you are not shooting this shot and we are also not going to foul. You have to pass the ball. Everyone, left corner, right corner, J dub on the wing. He kicks it to J dub and that's the knockout punch right there. I wrote that in my notes. The KO punch won't come. He misses that shot and that was the moment where I thought they might, they might actually win this thing and go up 1-0.
16:46 Bill Simmons? I have an important question.
16:49 Bill Simmons? Did you think the shot was going in? Cause I did not.
16:53 Speaker 02 The J. Dub shot or the Halliburton shot?
16:54 Bill Simmons? The J. Dub shot.
16:56 Speaker 02 I, I wasn't watching the trajectory, to be honest. I was watching the release. It looked fine.
17:01 Bill Simmons? When it went in and it was clear, he was, when it was clear he was about to shoot. Did you think it would go in?
17:06 Speaker 02 If I'm remembering correctly, he, he has like a little pass fake where he might pass it to the corner and then he decides to keep it himself. That's always like a, mm, I don't know, but I, I don't remember feeling strongly.
17:16 Bill Simmons? I did not think that was going in.
17:17 Speaker 02 You felt strongly about it right away.
17:19 Bill Simmons? I forget what Denver game it was. I think it was Denver.
17:24 Bill Simmons? What was the one where he hit that huge three that I didn't think was going in? I think it was, it was one of the Denver games and it was the same situation and he actually made it. That time he did not make it.
17:36 Bill Simmons? I, I gotta say, the more I'm thinking about it, I'm stunned that OKC changed what they did so much in that game. I don't really fully understand it. I thought their biggest advantage was going to be the size and the rebounding and the, and the rim protection. And I know you were making the case for one big at a time, but even then, like Chet played 23 minutes and Hartenstein played 17. And Isaiah Joe played 11 minutes. I mean, Isaiah Joe, he was fine. He was plus three. He made, he made two shots. But I felt like every moment when they had a swing out there that wasn't an absolute piranha defensively, you're giving Indiana like a little chance to breathe.
18:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
18:16 Bill Simmons? I don't know. It was weird coaching.
18:18 Speaker 02 I'm very interested to see what they do. Cause I would have started the double big lineup and sort of just modified the rotation. So it's if it's going a certain way, I go less double big, more one big. I thought the five out lineups, like the no big lineups, looked incredible defensively. Like Indiana was just like, where are we even supposed to go?
18:37 Bill Simmons? Right.
18:38 Speaker 02 All these dudes are.
18:38 Bill Simmons? You lose all the rebounding.
18:39 Speaker 02 But they lost too many of the rebounding. It was like a night. It was like, we did everything right and then couldn't close the deal.
18:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah. You made the key point though, with the foot, with the first part in the first quarter, they were clearly eschewing, oh, we're going to do this for six minutes and then here's the lineup we love. They're like, fuck it. We're going to try to blow you out of the, out of the arena in the first half, which they kind of did.
19:01 Speaker 02 They did, they did. And it was, I mean, I just couldn't like when the turnovers just kept happening, like every variety of turnover, entry passes, backdoor passes, lost it in the backcourt, dead ball turnovers. There was, I think the one that put them up 15, by the way, when you mentioned the biggest lead was when they couldn't inbound the ball from the baseline.
19:21 Bill Simmons? TJ McConnell inbound pass.
19:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, and J-Dub dunked it. And that felt, again, that felt like a knockout punch. Like, how many times do we see in this game? And the Pacers, man, they just keep on playing. They just keep playing. It's really, they're just, they're an awesome, awesome team and they just keep on coming.
19:37 Bill Simmons? SGA had 18 shots in the first half. He was 8 for 18, plus 15, just for record.
19:43 Speaker 02 I'm not gonna lie, I got a text from an assistant coach. He was like, is he gonna shoot 40 times in this game? Like, are we gonna see a 40-shot performance by SGA? And it was not a compliment.
19:53 Bill Simmons? I saw a stat today somewhere on social media that Shaq was the last scoring champ to win the title. It did make me pause for a second. I was like, wow, 25 years since that's happened. Seems like a long time. Who, well, I'll do some of my notes that I still feel like we can still use. Cause I was gonna ask you this after OKC won, but now they didn't win. Who was the MVP of that game? If this was hockey, you're not a hockey guy. This is hockey. Who's the star of the game? Who's the guy who skates out last? Waves to the crowd.
20:26 Speaker 02 I think the guy who skates out last is Halliburton, just because he made the shot at the end. I think the sneaky MVP of the game for Indiana, and it's just so befitting of how he plays, is Siakam. Just quietly 19 and 10, makes big plays, defends everywhere. You kind of don't notice him for a little while, but he's just a consistent positive force for them. Myles Turner was good in 28 minutes and then the top in five threes. And McConnell kept them afloat during a couple stretches where it looked like it could get out of hand. Those were, that's, those are nine big points for TJ McConnell. He's minus 13. I get it. It's not like a fantastic game, but those buckets felt huge.
21:08 Bill Simmons? So I would say Nemhard.
21:12 Bill Simmons? Because I thought there were a couple of moments where if he didn't play with the confidence that he had down the stretch, I just think they immediately lose. But you could also talk me into Siakam. Siakam had 10 rebounds. It's interesting, Halburn did too, because I was looking at the props for this game on Fanduel before the game. And I had to do that tail or fade pick, which I ended up doing SGA 2-3s, which hit. But I was initially going to do Siakam rebounds, because I was like, who's going to get rebounds on Indiana? And I went, I looked at his rebound game log, and he's really like 4, 5, 6 a game. This game, he had 10. And he had a couple of big offensive rebounds, I thought, in traffic, like to keep plays alive. And in general, I just felt like they kept plays alive a
21:54 Bill Simmons? couple of times. So did OKC. OKC had a couple of good tapouts. But if I'm OKC, I'm, I'm, screw this, let's go big again. We can't get, we can't go minus 17 on the boards at home.
22:07 Speaker 02 You know, it's interesting. One of the more eye popping stats in the box score is Chet Holmridge's minutes, which you mentioned earlier is 23 and change.
22:16 Bill Simmons? The second or third best guy on the team?
22:19 Speaker 02 And some of it is probably because he's on Miles Turner. And that's fine. Like, that's not a bad defensive matchup or anything. But Miles Turner is a pick and pop big man. And Shay, I'm sorry, Chet has made his bones in the NBA and made Oklahoma City's defense superpowered by being at the rim all the time. And by virtue of how they are matching up in this series so far through one game, he can't be at the rim all the time. And I wonder if he just doesn't feel as useful to Dagnall if he's not in that role. Like, he's guarded Jaden McDaniels, he's guarded Aaron Gordon, he's guarded guys where he could just be at the basket all the time. Which is why, you know, I, I, I thought
23:04 Speaker 02 that they would start big. And I said on my pod, I thought I would try him on Siakam. And I realized that looks like a bad matchup for Chet. And Waz made this point on group chat this week is like, because Siakam can just kind of get under taller, skinnier guys and do his Siakam stuff. And I was like, I still would try it because he's got to finish over Chet. Even if he backs them under the rim and I just like Chet near the basket. If Chet's going to be on the floor, I like him near the basket. And I just wonder if, maybe I'm crazy, but I wonder if they do start double big, if they match up that way, Hartenstein on Turner and Chet on Siakam. But yeah, they went for, they went for the jugular with that adjustment. They were like, we're not messing around and it, it kind of worked and then nothing worked.
23:49 Bill Simmons? Can I extend your point?
23:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
23:52 Bill Simmons? I just want Chet in the court. I think he's one of the 20 best guys in the league. Playing him 23 minutes in a finals game seems crazy to me. I don't understand why he wouldn't be out there. I mean, he was two for nine.
24:04 Bill Simmons? Maybe they thought he looked nervous. I don't know. You made a point, you kind of ruined, uh, and you hurt my feelings earlier in the week when you did your Tibbs, the thing you, the beginning of your pod yesterday. And you did the whole thing about when we complain about coaches and adjustments. And then you talked to a coach and you realized they're so much smarter than you. And I was like, don't lift the curtain for me, Zach. I want to feel like I'm as smart as these guys.
24:26 Speaker 02 Cause I've.
24:27 Bill Simmons? Don't tell me how much, don't tell me how much smarter they are than me. And what, what am I going to do? I like to second guess them.
24:32 Speaker 02 But my addendum to that would be, and I, I should have made it and I'll make it here. Is that even if they are aware of all of these criticisms and are five steps ahead of you, they still, and I think this is what Tibbs, where Tibbs falls, they still will default to what they feel most comfortable doing, even if some part of them is like, I should try this. I should try that. Or some coaches will do that. I think Tibbs is like that. Tibbs can, Tibbs could sit down and tell you 17 different counters to 17 different adjustments that you think he should do and why they wouldn't work. And still be aware of like, they might work, but I'm, he's going to lean on to what he knows. But anyway, go ahead.
25:11 Bill Simmons? Well, so Carlisle, there's two, and I thought there was good mic'd up moments in this game. Carlisle, they had in the huddle in the first half.
25:21 Bill Simmons? And he said, You can't dribble into a crowd against this team. You can't throw mid bounce passes into the middle against this team. And which was actually a lot of information from a coach. Usually it's like, guys, play hard. You gotta move your legs. But he was basically like, you're entering the bowels of hell. When you go into the middle and you're dribbling, please don't do that. I kept, I obviously I have to bring the Celtics into this. It's been 20 minutes. I did think today about Jaylen Brown and a couple of the other Celtics just dribbling into the middle in this game and how bad some of the plays would have gone. But then at halftime, they showed Carlisle too, talking to the team. And they showed in the third quarter. And he's like, hey, 19 turnovers. We're not playing well. We're fine.
26:06 Bill Simmons? Keep doing what you're doing. Keep like, he clearly like, wasn't rattled by whatever he saw in the first half. And their strategy was like, as long as we don't turn the ball over, we're going to shoot threes. We're going to keep the pace. I like the pace we're at and we can kind of hang around. Cause that was not how I felt at halftime. At halftime, I was like, they're going to lose by 25.
26:24 Speaker 02 No, at halftime, I felt like I was in the twilight zone. For like, the entire first half, I was like, is this a real game? Am I dreaming? How many turnovers do they have? And yet the score is only 12, 11. Where I, the whole game, I felt like I was hallucinating everything that was happening, including maybe right now. I don't know. Did Tyrese Haliburton hit another last second shot? Like, what is going on?
26:48 Bill Simmons? Well, so I had adjustments for game two that I did before, before the comeback. And the two adjustments I had for Indy was Indy has to run more, which I think they're going to do anyway. I think they're going to look at the tape and realize like, we're not, we weren't aggressive enough off rebounds. The other one's interesting because his stats weren't good. And this is just an eye test. And isn't backed up by any actual information. I thought Matherin seemed athletically comfortable in this game. And I'm intrigued by what his upside is for them because OKC is so fast and so athletic and they're just at warp speed. And I just thought he looked comfortable in the chaos
27:31 Bill Simmons? in a way that I'm wondering, are we going to hear from him in this series with one of those games, when one of those games, you know, when Matherin will have those games where he's like, he scored 27 points in 22 minutes. I feel like that, I feel like he's going to have one of those.
27:46 Speaker 02 So another sort of Rick Carlisle just pushes all the right buttons all the time. Toppin looks overwhelmed immediately and has disastrous two minutes. Some coaches would be like, it's just not, not going to be his night. Like I'll just try him one more stint if it doesn't work out. And like, we need you. Matherin, I thought, started the game also really bad. He had a couple of offensive possessions where he hesitated and the whole flow stopped. And Carlisle yanked him quickly after one of those possessions and then put him back in the game. I thought we, I thought we might not see him again after that substitution. Put him back in the game. It's not like he did anything amazing. He was one for five, but I thought he got to the line for four free throws and just looked again comfortable.
28:30 Bill Simmons? And he liked the speed.
28:32 Speaker 02 The Pacers, when you talk to their people, they view, they view these series like holistically. They're, they are thinking, they, they try to hold adjustments in the bag for future games instead of panicking and overdoing it right away. Like even if they're big underdogs like they are here, they're sort of playing in their head as if this is going to be a really long series. And I think trusting those guys to keep playing is like, we're going to need them at some point in the series. Turned out they needed them today.
29:01 Bill Simmons? That's good.
29:02 Speaker 02 Thomas Bryant even comes in and scores five points, corner three at the end of the third quarter. Like just, okay.
29:09 Bill Simmons? His corner three is starting to look Ray Allen-esque. He's one where I think it's going in. Yeah. When, when Thomas Bryant's signing up. Lots more to discuss. We're going to take a break for the podcast. We'll keep going on the, on the YouTube here. Hey, sports fans, we got a big day of games on Saturday. Fanduel wants you to make the most of it. Right now, for one day only, America's number one sportsbook is giving all of its customers a 50% profit boost to use on any bet. Across any sport on June 7th, we're talking baseball, WNBA, UFC, you can bet on Kevin Holland, you can bet against Sean O'Malley. Baseball, you can bet on Garrett Crochet to give up under two runs and then the Red Sox to blow a tie game in the, in the ninth inning. I don't know how you bet that, but you could do that. Whatever you want, you get a profit
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30:37 Bill Simmons? tools called Breeze, so you can generate more leads, close more deals and scale your service fast. With Breeze agents handling the busy work, customers are cutting sales cycles in half and saving hours on work each week. Best of all, you can see results in days, not months. Visit hubspot.com/ai to learn more. So Halliburton.
31:02 Speaker 02 Yes.
31:03 Bill Simmons? What a roller coaster ride for this guy from a big picture standpoint. I think if they lose this game by 1215, Halliburton becomes on the TV shows the next day, the, "Where's Tyrese Halliburton? He's gotta step up. It's the finals."
31:19 Speaker 02 You love the step, but you love the step up guy.
31:21 Bill Simmons? He's the step up guy. Because I thought he was a little tentative, but, and sometimes he's tentative because he's trying to fill out the game. In this case, he's going against like an actual fish tank of piranha. And I think going from the speed of what he was going against, against the Knicks and just trying to hunt Jalen Brunson and Towns for two weeks. And then you see this team and you're like, I, who do I hunt? I, what do I do? But I, I thought he kept tossing the car keys to Nemhard in smart ways.
31:54 Bill Simmons? He didn't, you know, they had all these turnovers. I think he only had three. A lot of the turnovers were Turner and Neesmith. And then those three top end and McConnell had a couple, but I don't know. I, I expect him to be a little more assertive maybe in game two as well. I think they have some moves left. I think they had bullets in the arsenal for the next game.
32:14 Speaker 02 Well, when you turn the ball over 25 times, you do just like, like that's one bullet in the arsenal. Just don't do stuff like that.
32:22 Bill Simmons? Take care of the ball. Well, so they had five in the second half, which is a good sign too. If you're in Indiana, you're like, hey, let's play like we did in the second half.
32:28 Speaker 02 Another three, and I think it was in the fourth quarter. I don't remember which one. If we're talking about just everything's got to flip right kind of plays for you to come back and win a game like this. But there was one possession where Neesmith almost got stripped of the ball like four times in two seconds. He was in the paint, then he was underneath the basket. Somehow didn't lose the ball and found top end for a three. And that was also, I don't, I think that was in the fourth quarter. I was like, I don't understand. I just don't even understand what's happening anymore. And they just keep coming.
32:57 Bill Simmons? So there was a lot of talk last season about the sameness of the, of the styles and the teams. And, and by the way, there was talk on your podcast and my podcast about it. Are we heading toward a world where everybody has the same offense and plays the same way? And it's all about just hunting matchups and shooting threes and having two guys in the corner and four guys standing around. And then one guy comes over and sets a pick and that's just going to be basketball. And OKC and Indiana, one of the reasons I think we had so much trouble wrapping our heads around game one as we're watching it was neither of them play like that. I mean, OKC was a little predictable with the SGA
33:37 Bill Simmons? stuff, but for the most part, you have, OKC's playing small ball down the stretch. Their defense is unlike anything anybody else has. Indiana is just a hodgepodge of, I don't know what the fuck is going on. And, uh, and there's just a natural chaos that both teams have. That makes me think maybe this series is going to be better than we thought. I thought it was going to be OKC in four or five. I picked five. I think you picked five too.
34:02 Speaker 02 I picked five. Yeah.
34:03 Bill Simmons? Out of respect for Indiana.
34:06 Speaker 02 Not looking good. OKC in five.
34:08 Bill Simmons? Well, because you figure OKC and the road's a little bit different, right? It's it's going to be a little more, a little more grueling for them. I mean, could this be like the Philly Lakers series in oh, one where Philly steals the game in game one? And then the Lakers just dispatched them after that over the next four, maybe.
34:26 Speaker 02 Maybe it doesn't feel it right now in the wake of that game. It doesn't feel like that because Oklahoma City looked a little
34:37 Speaker 02 confused is the wrong word. They just looked a little like off trying to figure out what to do against Indiana and how this this different team that plays differently.
34:49 Bill Simmons? Well, that was a little like the first Denver home game. Where they had they controlled the game for 44 minutes and then something weird happened to them. I also think they were going too slow and they stopped kind of looking sometime. This is obviously the all time example of this where the last few years of the Celtics, where they would have this lead and they would change how they played to kind of almost protect the lead and change their identity in four minutes. And I felt a little of that with them.
35:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, I really, I want to rewatch the the fourth quarter because I think Indiana just began selling out to the paint. Like, we're just going to make you guys make threes. We're not giving you fouls and we're not giving you layups.
35:27 Bill Simmons? But can you look for Chet Holmgren as you rewatch in the fourth quarter?
35:31 Speaker 02 He's always, he's easy to spot when he's on the bench, very tall.
35:35 Bill Simmons? He's the guy on the bench going, looking at the coach over and over again, going, am I going back in? I'm like the 19, I was 19th of the Ringer 100.
35:42 Speaker 02 But when you, I mean, like, yes, Oklahoma City, I thought play, I thought they played too slowly, almost in like a Knicks kind of way where there were a lot of possessions where there was 13 on the shot clock. By the time they just walked it up and there's 13 on the shot clock by the time they did anything like. Like part of the slowness for both teams that you've suggested both teams run more is like, these are two of the three or four, if even that many best transition defense teams in the league. Like it's hard to run against these teams because they're super fast, super athletic and super attentive to just like we're not giving up fast break points.
36:19 Speaker 02 But even just taking the ball out of the basket, I thought Indiana didn't play or Oklahoma City didn't play with enough speed. Indiana will play with speed. After you make a basket, they'll be underneath your basket in, in five seconds. And I think both teams have different tools they can play with to play a little faster. But I thought Oklahoma City kind of sunk into a, why are you guys walking it up like this? Let's go. Like get, you're young and fast and that's not how you, that's not how you play. I guess that's, that's how I was feeling about Oklahoma City for a lot of this game, other than when they were forcing a million turnovers. Like this doesn't feel like how you, it's too deliberate. It almost feels a little too deliberate for how you guys usually play.
36:57 Bill Simmons? One thing about what you said about uh,
37:02 Bill Simmons? pushing the pace, but being nervous about OKC. It was interesting to watch both Halliburton and Nemhard when they're going up the middle and they were constantly doing this, looking left, right, as they're going full speed because oh, there's no team like OKC that just comes diving in from the sides, right? It's almost like you're driving on the highway and you just have cars like trying to basically spin you out on your left fender and your right fender. These guys are driving up and they seem rattled by it.
37:28 Speaker 02 Or right from behind. Like if you get a rebound and you start pushing it up, like, like there was at least one or two where the one was like Dort just comes up right from behind and takes the ball. I'm, how about Dort, by the way? When Dort made his two back, he made like two consecutive threes. One was like the Nemhard one where he just was like, I'm just gonna ISO this and launch a three. And then he made another one on the next possession. I was like, well, tough one for Indiana. Lou Dort's gonna just go, go crazy for, from three, you know?
37:53 Bill Simmons? Well, he was gonna be my MVP if they won this game. He's also, it's funny, I wrote this down and then they lost, but Jada McDaniels was like this for Minnesota. Dort is the guy for OKC where if he's shooting the ball well on top of doing the defensive stuff, you just feel like they're completely unbeatable. Of course, they uh.
38:11 Speaker 02 Four steals and five threes for Lou Dort. Yes. If his threes plus steals are approaching 10, that's usually a problem.
38:20 Bill Simmons? So I Googled, like a lot of people at halftime, the record for turnovers in a finals game. And, and they weirdly got it wrong on the broadcast. They said it was 34 with the 77 Blazers and it was 36 Golden State, game three, 1975 finals, a game that they won by eight. And they had 36 turnovers. And I did a tweet joking about how, hey, you can do this. But I just thought that was so crazy that somebody turned the ball over 36 times and won. And now we have a game where somebody turned it over 24 times and, and won. All right. So what are our fixes for OKC for game two? If you had to make picks here?
39:00 Speaker 02 Play with more just juice in the half court. Play with more urgency, more speed. Like I thought, I think they could probably hunt Halliburton a little bit more often and a little bit more effectively than they did. But part of that is like, setting good screens. Like I don't think they, like Halliburton's guys screening for Shay, like sometimes you gotta hit the guy, force him to make a decision, force him to help a little bit more. And I thought some of their best offense was keep it simple. Like Shay going at the Indiana big men on the pick and roll, I thought was more effective than iso ball, than getting cute, trying to do guard, guard screens, hunting Halliburton, even though as I say
39:42 Speaker 02 that they could hunt him more effectively. I thought like Myles Turner did not really have a good game trying to contain Shay on the pick and roll. Toppin couldn't do it. Even Siakam on a switch once got burned. I thought like that's the simplest offense in the NBA, right? Just have your big guy, if there's one on the floor, come screen, get the other team's center involved and, and go from there. And I thought Halliburton actually had some success doing that too. On the other end, those would be two. And, and I think the rotation's a big one. I even think like Ken Rich Williams, one minute, that was weird. I could, I would play him more at the four, maybe a little bit. Did not, did not have the A.J. Mitchell first half stint, uh, in my notes. Didn't see that one coming. Not really sure why that happened. Uh, but it was just, just weird.
40:27 Bill Simmons? Did you notice it's always hard to tell through the TV, but sometimes you can kind of tell. Crowd got super tight the last three minutes.
40:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, you can tell.
40:35 Bill Simmons? You could, you could feel it. That was a, we've never won the title. What's going on? Oh God. And it's interesting because I went to game one of the 2012 series against LeBron and the Heat, which if I remember correctly, OKC, I thought should have won that game. Maybe they did win the game. One of those first two games, Durant got fouled in the corner and they didn't
40:56 Speaker 02 Game one, game one, they won. Game two is the game you're talking about where Durant gets fouled up, uh, Miami's up two.
41:01 Bill Simmons? Sitting where he got fouled.
41:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, Miami's up two. Yeah.
41:04 Bill Simmons? But yeah, that crowd is absolutely loud. Your head hurts when you leave.
41:10 Bill Simmons? But they can also get a little tight.
41:12 Speaker 02 And don't you think some of that is also like those fans know this team has done this to every team they've faced in the playoffs so far? Like if we let this game get away, we've seen Indiana in this movie before. Like it's danger, A, it's dangerous. They're never out of the game. And B, if we give them momentum with a home loss like this, who the hell knows what could happen?
41:33 Bill Simmons? Well, what's interesting, big picture, Indiana, who if they just get swept in the finals, just historically, legacy wise, you'd be like, oh yeah, that was a weird season. Indiana beat Milwaukee, then they shocked Cleveland. They had all those comebacks and then they beat the Knicks and they fired Tibbs and then they got killed in the finals. Yeah, I kind of remember that team. Now it's like, remember that Indiana team? Holy shit. You had to like chop their head off and decapitate them to get them out of the way. What a crazy finals team that was.
42:04 Speaker 02 I mean, some, someone, some like Kevin Pelton stats kind of person is going to have to go through the database and study, is this the greatest clutch shooting season? It lasts two minute, last 90 seconds.
42:17 Bill Simmons? Playoffs.
42:18 Speaker 02 Yeah. Or, but, but even regular season, he was incredible too. It's like he just is, Halliburton is making all the shots. We didn't, you know what? We did not hammer enough. We kind of hammered around it. We didn't hammer it enough. J Dub and Chet, eight of 28 combined from the floor. Chet, Chet made two baskets the entire game. The first was to my earlier point about keep it simple. Pick and pop, pump fake, drive by Miles Turner, layup. The second was a fast, a dunk on a breakdown on a, on a double pick and stagger pick and roll. That's just like two, two baskets for Chet and eight of 28 for those two guys. Like, you know, that's
42:54 Bill Simmons? Young guys in game one of the finals.
42:56 Speaker 02 When Oklahoma City loses, the focus is often on those, the, the second and third guys. Cause Shay, even when he has a eh game, and this was like as eh, as I think a 38 point game could be. Yeah. Puts up numbers with some decent level of efficiency. And so the spotlight always goes to those guys and they weren't good enough.
43:14 Bill Simmons? Well, the other thing about the finals that we love, the rhythm of these games where you have game one. And this is the only time you have the home game with the, with the two days off. And two days talking about it. And tomorrow people are going to go to Nemhard and be like, you've been going against SGA for a long time. What's your secret? Just dying for him to say one dumb thing. You're Dagnall. What? You guys are 80 and 18. Chet played 23 minutes. Hartenstein played 17. Like, what, what are you doing? I mean, I'm sure that was in the press conference right now. So a little bit of a pressure. And then on top of it, you have Indiana, which I think has a great crowd. And now they can decide the series at home if they want to, and they would be.
43:58 Bill Simmons? I, I think the most improbable finals champ.
44:03 Speaker 02 I'm Easy, easy, easy. Let's not do it yet.
44:06 Bill Simmons? I'm trying to think, is there anybody, even if you said like the 77 Blazers or the 78 Sonics, like that era, even. I don't know. Talk about it. They were 28 to 12 in the East before the playoffs. This would be the fucking craziest finals.
44:21 Speaker 02 If you were a Pacers fan right now, and the basketball gods came to you and said, hey, we'll, we'll make you a deal. Would you sign up for 2-2 right now, going back to Oklahoma City 2-2 for game five? Would you take that deal or are you going to get greedy and think we can be up?
44:36 Bill Simmons? I don't think I can win if it's 2-2. I think I have to win two of the next three.
44:40 Speaker 02 Okay.
44:41 Bill Simmons? All right. I assume I'm going to win game three.
44:45 Bill Simmons? And then game four will be, you assume OKC will do the thing where they win by 38 in game two and one of those games. And then we'd be like, oh, India already got the game they got. Then India win game three, then game four be the series. I will say though, when you're a big underdog, I really like winning game one. I just feel like if the recipe to actually win a series when you're a massive underdog like that, now you only have to win three of the next six. By the way, these aren't like outstanding points by me. I'm just pointing out, you lose that first game and now you have to win four of the next six and you're the big underdog to begin with. Conversely, we've seen some teams where they blow that first game in a, in a big
45:26 Bill Simmons? series or even a finals. And it turns, you know, we just saw it with the Knicks series. You saw it in Orlando, Houston in 1995. Sometimes there could be a devastating game one loss and the team can get rattled. I think OKC will be fine though, because chat will play more, JDub will be better. And, and I assume they're not going to get out rebounded by 17 again.
45:49 Speaker 02 Well, this is also where the Denver series and to a lesser extent, game four in Minnesota are just massively important for them because they've answered the bell already every time they face pressure, including being down 2-1 to Denver and specifically JDub, especially JDub in games, game seven of the, of the Denver series. So it's that, this is, this is no longer like, it's uncharted because it's the finals, but they've kind of done this before. And this seems like a team who won't get too high or too low to use a cliche.
46:23 Bill Simmons? I have down as a winner, Nikola Jokic. Just because I think OKC is just an absolute beast. And you think like, he takes, takes Team USA to the brink, almost beats them, takes this OKC team to seven. And then you watch them in that first half and you're like, oh my God, this team's going to go 84 and 18. And then maybe he's not as much of a winner.
46:46 Speaker 02 Well, wait, should it, by that standard, shouldn't, shouldn't one of the winners be like Tibbs? And, and the Knicks? By, by that standard, like, you know, okay.
46:54 Bill Simmons? Can we talk about the Knicks really quick?
46:55 Speaker 02 They've got, they've got company now, you know.
46:57 Bill Simmons? Let's take a break and we'll do the Knicks really quick.
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47:29 Bill Simmons? Knicks coach drama. Boy, boy, there's been some buzzing. Boy, there's been some tidbits and some, some things being talked about.
47:39 Speaker 02 Okay.
47:39 Bill Simmons? Sources are saying stuff.
47:41 Speaker 02 Well, what are they saying?
47:42 Bill Simmons? I don't know. It just seems that Knicks team was a lot more dysfunctional than I think. Heard hints and heard rumors and, but man, feels a little game of Thrones-y over there.
47:54 Speaker 02 Dysfunctional? Well, okay, so are you talking about players or like when you say game of thrones, you usually mean, you know, the upper echelon of management?
48:01 Bill Simmons? Here's my question for you. So Jalen Brunson's dad is one of the coaches of the team and worked with Tibbs for a long time and Dante DiVincenzo was yelling at him for some reason in that first home game and seemed like he had felt betrayed by him. And there are always rumors that he had an outsized voice with Leon and all those dudes. If you're the next coach, do you want your own staff or do you want to inherit this staff that felt like it got a little game of thrones-y down the stretch there?
48:29 Speaker 02 Okay, so every coach wants his own staff and there are some coaches, there are some coaches for whom that's been a deal breaker when they are told during the hiring process, well, you gotta keep this guy or you gotta keep this guy, you gotta keep these two guys. It's either, it's, it's been either a deal breaker or begrudgingly accepted by a coach who really wants a particular job with an eye on like, all right, I'll give it a year and then I'll exercise my power. This is obviously a much different situation since he is the father of the franchise player. And I think that is a discussion that has to include lots of different parties to come to a, if a, if a change is made, I think a lot of different people have to be involved in that. And I don't, when you talk to people around the league, there's a lot of skepticism that
49:11 Speaker 02 there would be a change made because he is Jalen Brunson's father, but.
49:16 Bill Simmons? I think skepticism is underrating it. I think people think he will be on the bench.
49:22 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. Yeah.
49:25 Speaker 02 But you know, dysfunctional is like, it's a strong, it's a strong word.
49:31 Speaker 02 It's just like, every team's got its stuff, right? Every team's got its stuff in the locker room, but.
49:37 Bill Simmons? Lot of leaks, lot of maneuvering, the story from the moment the season ended all the way through that athletic thing that we talked about on our podcast that came out almost right afterwards, the scapegoating and that was really interesting.
49:52 Speaker 02 I've been following the league long enough. That was Cat. Cat was kind of hit hard in that one.
49:57 Bill Simmons? And Tibbs, right? Called it out that night when I read the story. It was like, all right, this is notable that these are the two scapegoats. Let's see how it goes. I'll be interested to see if Cat will be the other domino that falls with this, but would, who wants this job? Is, I assumed Johnny Bryant was going to get it because the Suns said there were two people left, him, the guy who got the job.
50:22 Speaker 02 Jordan Otte. Give Jordan Otte some love.
50:24 Bill Simmons? Who apparently is married to somebody named Jordan. Did you hear this?
50:28 Speaker 02 I did not. I have not dove into his.
50:29 Bill Simmons? Both named Jordan. Interesting couple. That's, that's what I heard. I don't know if that's true.
50:33 Speaker 02 Wow.
50:35 Bill Simmons? But, uh, so Johnny Bryant.
50:37 Speaker 02 How many names, how many names could you do that with? Okay. You know, have the same, yeah.
50:42 Bill Simmons? Right. It would have to be like Jordan, Kelly.
50:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, Kelly's a good one.
50:46 Bill Simmons? Anyway, Alex. Yeah, Alex is a good one. But, uh, so when Johnny was in the final two and then all of a sudden the other guy got it, I just assumed he was the, the next thing. I don't think Ben Gundy, that name got flown around, but he's.
51:00 Speaker 02 Which one?
51:01 Bill Simmons? Jeff. He's friends with, uh, obviously really close with Tibbs. I don't see him being like, cool.
51:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:07 Bill Simmons? You shanked my guy. I'd love to take the job.
51:09 Speaker 02 Everything he's ever said publicly and privately would cut against him taking that job.
51:16 Bill Simmons? So who's left? The only name that didn't really get mentioned that I was surprised. Oh, you're excited. Taylor Jenkins is a good coach. I watched a lot of Memphis games going, man, they have a really good coach. And he's just kind of sitting there. Everyone was talking Mike Malone, but to me that that just feels like you're running back a different version of Tibbs. Taylor Jenkins, I thought you could make a pretty fair case with him that he had a really tough job the last couple of years.
51:46 Speaker 02 He's a very good coach. Taylor Jenkins is a very good coach. Memphis to New York as a market and as expectations faced is about as big of a jump as you can make.
51:58 Bill Simmons? And you go from Chris Vernon to 40 Chris Vernons?
52:01 Speaker 02 I mean, does James Dolan know who Taylor Jenkins is? Like, start there. Like, I'm not even being facetious. Like, is he aware that that's a coach? I don't know.
52:12 Bill Simmons? I'm not sure he's hiring the next coach. I think this is a lean on thing.
52:16 Speaker 02 But he's got a rubber stamp.
52:18 Bill Simmons? Sign off on it. Who do you think's going to be the next coach?
52:22 Speaker 02 I have no earthly idea. I mean, I, you know, I've heard rumblings of, like, maybe they want an ex-player, an ex-NBA player. I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's true.
52:36 Bill Simmons? My favorite is Ron Artest, or in his hat and the ring was my number one thing that happened this week.
52:40 Speaker 02 He really wants to coach. He really wants to coach.
52:43 Bill Simmons? Pretty sure he's not going to get it.
52:45 Speaker 02 I don't, has he come up on like the, the list of like, you know, the, the 20 best odds to coach the New York Knicks where it's like the bottom one is the last one is like Stephen A. Smith, like they get real.
52:56 Bill Simmons? Joe House is right above him. Yeah.
53:00 Speaker 02 I, I thought the name, I thought Frank Vogel might come up just because he's a New York guy. But he's, you know, he's been in a lot of places now in a short amount of time. Look, the one.
53:12 Bill Simmons? He got HPHD.
53:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, well, I saw that you boosted his, I'm gonna get more involved. Watch out, I'm gonna get Ishbia, I'm gonna get more involved. I wasn't involved enough and I'm gonna get more involved.
53:28 Bill Simmons? Like, it wasn't his idea to throw Cam Johnson and then Kevin Durant trade and like one more pick and just be like, whatever it takes, let's get him.
53:34 Speaker 02 You're loving Ishbia. You got him on your podcast right off the bat and now you're like, yeah.
53:37 Bill Simmons? I had no idea it was gonna be as special as this.
53:40 Speaker 02 I think, I think he's not, he's not gonna come back on.
53:42 Bill Simmons? I actually was, I was gonna do this with you on the pod, the most hilarious owner of each decade. Cause he's clearly halfway there. Vivek was locked it down in the 2010s.
53:52 Speaker 02 Vivek is coming in for a late, a late 2020s rally.
53:55 Bill Simmons? That's the thing, you can't count him out. You can't.
54:00 Bill Simmons? You just can't. He's, I'm not saying Ishbia hasn't locked up yet, but he's, he's in the lead and he's feeling good, but Vivek, you know, who knows? But Vivek won last decade and then I think probably Dolan won in the 2000s with all the crazy shit he did.
54:15 Speaker 02 He's too, he's, he's not hilarious, though. It says, it doesn't fit him. Doesn't fit him.
54:21 Bill Simmons? So who would you have in the 2000s? Sarver?
54:25 Speaker 02 No, nothing. They're, they're malicious people. They're not hilarious. Sarver like did illegal stuff, like.
54:31 Bill Simmons? Well, we didn't know that in the 2000s, though.
54:32 Speaker 02 Faced civil litigation, anyway.
54:34 Bill Simmons? No, that was later. I'm saying 2000s.
54:36 Speaker 02 2000s.
54:37 Bill Simmons? When he basically hired Steve Kerr and it's like, you have to get into luxury tracks, trade all our picks.
54:43 Speaker 02 I mean, he, he wasn't.
54:46 Bill Simmons? You know who it is? It was Cuban. From a hilarious standpoint, some of the stuff where he was sitting on the bench and remember the time he ran on the court during the fight to break up the court and then realized he shouldn't be on the court? He had some funny stuff. Ishbia is the clear winner in the 2020s, though.
55:01 Speaker 02 I mean, I guess we can't blame, well, we can blame, but it wasn't hilarious. Glenn Taylor for just overseeing the entire David Kahn experience in Minnesota, but.
55:12 Bill Simmons? You know, this is why you're the best. Not only that, but the, he lost four picks for Joe Smith.
55:20 Speaker 02 But he was never hilarious. Was never hilarious.
55:23 Bill Simmons? He called, as we had in the Celtic City doc, he called Wick to congratulate him on winning the 2008 title because he was trading him Kevin Garnett. He had Kevin McHale as a coach and a GM at the same time and Flip Saunders. Yeah, it's Glenn Taylor. It's a great call.
55:40 Speaker 02 Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's go back to the Knicks. We didn't like, who do you think is going to get the job?
55:46 Bill Simmons? I find it hard to believe Johnny Bryant's going to be the head coach. The more I looked at it and thought about it, it just doesn't seem like he's experienced enough. This is one of the biggest jobs in the league. I would bet on Taylor Jenkins, Frank Vogel, Mike Malone, one of those guys who at least has been in some situations.
56:03 Speaker 02 What about the, what about the, um, can we trade for your coach gambit that has been mentioned with Ime Udoka and Jason Kidd? Any of that interesting to you?
56:12 Bill Simmons? Why would Houston trade Ime Udoka? Like just throw him out. He's, they're not getting rid of him. That's ridiculous.
56:19 Speaker 02 I agree, and I don't think he would leave. It's a great situation, even with the East being so much worse than the West. It's a great situation. And also, like, I know how Houston's GM, Rafael Stone, negotiates would just be like, you don't even have enough, you don't have enough. I want three first round picks and you don't even have that. The Kidd one is interesting to me.
56:38 Bill Simmons? Yeah, because he's, he certainly didn't love the Luca one.
56:42 Speaker 02 I, I wouldn't take my eyes off it. That's all I, that's all I would say now. I wouldn't, I wouldn't take, I wouldn't disqualify it. I wouldn't take my eyes off it. In part because as you and I are batting it around, we can't find another candidate that's like, oh, that's, that makes a ton of sense for a team that has said in its press release announcing the firing of Tom Thibodeau, we are a championship roster, or at least we believe we are. That's the pressure. That's the expectations. That's why it's hard to imagine a first time head coach walking into that job.
57:11 Bill Simmons? I apologize to the friend who sent me this.
57:14 Speaker 02 Oh, boy.
57:15 Bill Simmons? That I can't remember their name.
57:18 Speaker 02 What kind of friend are you?
57:20 Bill Simmons? But made the point Tibbs would have been the greatest Atlanta Hawks coach. And that the best outcome would have been a Quinn Snyder for Tibbs trade over firing Tibbs. Because if you put Tibbs on Atlanta, he basically just could have run the Knicks offense with Trey as Jalen Brunson, but then had all of this defense and all of these wings and a Kangu as the shot blocker. And just done the Tibbs with that team and Trey could have shot 36 times. I again, I really apologize to my friend who texted this, but I thought it was great. And then Quinn Snyder on the Knicks bench with the red glasses, just, just being weird and handsome.
57:56 Speaker 02 He's got to get blue glasses then. Blue glasses or orange glasses.
57:59 Bill Simmons? Right. Dark blue glasses. I thought that was a really good one. I think, I think it's a guy with some pedigree. Malone would be a weird one though, because he's a little gruff like Tibbs was, but the guy won a title two years ago.
58:12 Speaker 02 Well, so that's a great, this is a point I wanted to make and I should have made it about Tibbs. And I'm going to make it again on my podcast this weekend. Michael Malone's a great name to bring up. Mike Budenholzer is a great name to bring up, not for this job, but for this, for this purpose. Frank Vogel's a great name to bring up, not necessarily for this job, but for this purpose. The idea that Tibbs is not a championship coach, that you need a different coach to take your team. He's the floor raiser who can only take your team so far. I think there's some merit to the general idea of Tibbs as that. Because he is indisputably an incredible floor raiser, incredible. And I don't think he's like a Carlisle Spoh level quarter for quarter, minute for minute adjustment guy.
58:57 Speaker 02 That's your playoff dream coach, right? But I don't think any of those other guys were either. And like, that's why Mike Budenholzer got fired in Milwaukee. He was too slow to adjust, blah, blah, blah. Michael Malone was never thought of as like this incredible wizard of adjustments and all this stuff. And those guys won championships. Like if you have the right talent and. If you have the right talent, right year, right circumstances, like, yeah, I should have been clear about this. Like, Tom Thibodeau can absolutely win an NBA championship, even if he is more of a floor raiser than a ceiling raiser. He can, he's so good at getting your floor so high that he can get you into that spot. He can absolutely win a championship.
59:39 Speaker 02 And like, that's why that Michael Malone, Mike Budenholz, remember Bud was like on thin ice several times in Milwaukee, mostly because of the idea that he was not as good of a playoff coach as someone like Erik Spoelstra, who kind of exposed him a couple of times, and he won the championship. That's all.
59:56 Bill Simmons? Well, I think it seems like it was time for Tibbs to go to New York after five years.
1:00:00 Speaker 02 Didn't you?
1:00:02 Bill Simmons? It felt like the core guys were good. Moving on with him. When you lose the core guys, it's, it's a wrap in the NBA. And that's why the longest tenured coaches in the league go back to 2020.
1:00:14 Speaker 02 Can we just, the core guys, I know Katz had experience with Tibbs before, maybe, so maybe this doesn't matter.
1:00:20 Bill Simmons? I knew that was Rocky from the get go. I'm sure it was like, no, no, it's fine now. How do we know?
1:00:25 Speaker 02 Ananobe, like, kind of just got there. You know, it's not like he's been there all five years with Tibbs. It's not like Towns has been there all five years with Tibbs, or Hart has been there all five, he's been there all, Bridges just got there. It's not like they've all been there for like, four years of just like, oh my God, another shoot around with Tibbs. Like, you know, it's, it's not like they've been there that long.
1:00:45 Bill Simmons? Seemed a little, uh, seemed a little gamey. That's why I flagged it for you in April, when you jerk backwards.
1:00:53 Speaker 02 And I still, like, they made the conference finals.
1:00:56 Bill Simmons? They did.
1:00:56 Speaker 02 And the thing is, a lot of it has to come down to, how do you view those first two games against Boston? Because they were, they were before Tatum tore his Achilles, they were about to go up 3-1, probably win that series. And you would think like, wow, what a feather in their cap that they're going to knock the defending champions out pretty honestly until that injury. Unless you think the first two games were about Boston just were like 75% choke, 25% comeback, and not 50-50.
1:01:27 Bill Simmons? Can I give you a 90-10?
1:01:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, whatever. I was trying to be nice to the Knicks.
1:01:32 Bill Simmons? I was on a tech start about this two days ago, because I was looking at the third and fourth quarter box scores from game one, and getting mad all over again.
1:01:43 Bill Simmons? The Celtics took, I think it was 34 shots in the second half and 27 of them were threes. They took 20, 20 shots in the third quarter with a 20-point lead at various points and 19 of them were threes. They took zero free throws. And the whole thing is like, after watching what Indiana did to the Knicks, to think that the Celtics just walked the ball up and just jacked up threes and that was their offense and what a giant favor they did for the Knicks in both of those games. And then the Knicks hung around and they grabbed the game, much like Indiana today. But to me, that was a Boston, just an absolute strategy collapse where you're just like, it was basically the opposite of OKC tonight, where OKC is like, actually, we're going to change our lineup. We think maybe this will be a little better for us.
1:02:28 Bill Simmons? Boston was like, we do this. This is all we do. We don't care who we're playing. This is our formula. We're never going to deviate from it. And then you see how easy it was to just push the ball on the Knicks, get Towns or Brunson in any sort of switch, keep running, run after, run after made baskets, just keep pushing the pace on them. And they didn't do any of it. And they had the same kind of players Indiana has, better versions of them in some cases. Anyway.
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1:03:23 Bill Simmons? I have the, I have what's Utah up to written down as a topic.
1:03:29 Speaker 02 We're talking about the Utah Jazz at 12:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time?
1:03:34 Bill Simmons? This is my last one because I haven't seen you since they hired Austin Ainge, gave him the car case, then Austin Ainge is like, we're not going to be tanking anymore. That got my attention.
1:03:44 Bill Simmons? I have my eye on them. Everybody's telling me to have my eye on Toronto. That's been the new catchy thing to say this month of watch out for Toronto.
1:03:52 Speaker 02 Nobody loves that more than the Raptors. They're in the discourse, baby.
1:03:55 Bill Simmons? Watch out for Toronto. It's like, what am I watching out for? Well, what are they gonna do? They're gonna trade Scotty Barnes and other picks for Giannis? Milwaukee's not doing that. What are they gonna do?
1:04:05 Speaker 02 Why are you disqualifying that for Milwaukee?
1:04:10 Bill Simmons? I'm not doing that. I'm keeping Giannis. If it's Scotty Barnes and some picks for Giannis, thanks. I'm gonna keep Giannis. Thanks, anyway. I'll keep one of the 20 best players ever at age 30. Thank you.
1:04:23 Speaker 02 Well, because so do you want to talk about the Utah Jazz? Should we do a deep dive on Kante George? Like, what are we, what are we doing here?
1:04:28 Bill Simmons? I'm just wondering, are they gonna get frisky over the next three weeks? Do I have to keep my eye on this?
1:04:34 Speaker 02 So you're, you love this idea of, you love this idea of marketing for Paul George in number three. That's like your, that's like your little pet. That's like a little pet over here. You love that one.
1:04:46 Bill Simmons? I have it in a cage. I feed it some cage-free eggs and some, some spring water and I try to, try to grow it. I don't even know if that makes sense for Philly, but I just wonder if Philly's looking at trades like that with the third pick.
1:05:00 Speaker 02 I hate that trade for everybody involved.
1:05:02 Bill Simmons? I think I do too. I just thought it was a fun trade. I don't know. What are you doing with marketing and Joel Embiid together? I don't know what that is.
1:05:09 Speaker 02 Now, if, if, if you tell me I'm the Sixers, I know, or I'm the Jazz, I can reroute Paul George somewhere else for something less damaging to my cap sheet for the next three years and I get the number three pick. Then it starts to be somewhat interesting to me, but like marketing's pretty good. And the Paul George contract is not so good, although I think it'll get rehabbed in this year. I think we'll think differently of Paul, of Paul George in about six months.
1:05:31 Bill Simmons? Can I make the case for why I would think about this if I'm Utah? I wouldn't do it if I was Philly. But if I'm Utah and I have two, two stabs at a top five pick in this draft, which I think has a real, especially the top five has a chance. There might be somebody really special.
1:05:46 Bill Simmons? Edgecombe, Trey Johnson, Harper, like one of those guys might end up being a top 10 or 15 guy in the league, maybe two of them, who knows? If I'm Utah, I get two swings at that apple if I can trade, keep my fifth pick and trade into the top three, but I, that would not be the trade I did if I was Philly. I would try to do three and Paul George. I would be shopping that around. Like I would have offered that to Jalen Brown, for Jalen Brown right now.
1:06:14 Speaker 02 Well, that's okay. So you're in the right age range then because for Philly, I'm sorry, but I have to make decisions at this level based on a timetable that is not Joel Embiid's timetable. Like I, that's, that's why if, if I really like the guys that are available at three and those guys have studied the draft a thousand times more than I have, if they hate, if they don't like those guys, it's a different conversation. If I like them, I, as a steward of that franchise, I could no longer mortgage major pieces of our future for the idea that I can win a title with Joel Embiid. I just can't do it anymore.
1:06:48 Bill Simmons? I think you're right. I think that's the right, I think you have Max McCain number three.
1:06:52 Speaker 02 It's obvious. Like.
1:06:54 Bill Simmons? I just don't know if, I don't know if that front office is wired that way though.
1:06:59 Speaker 02 So that's the thing about Utah and frisky, that, that your little pet trade is at least the right idea of them being frisky. Because otherwise, like, what, what am I going to do? I'm going to go out and trade for Trey Young or something like, why is that interesting to me if I'm Utah? But like, what, what am, why am I cashing in chips? When Austin says they're not tanking anymore, it's, it, they don't have to tank to tank. Like they could just play all the players that they have on their roster. Maybe trade Sexton for a first or whatever, whoever gets you a first out of the Sexton, Collins, Clarkson group. And just don't do what you did last year where everyone has injuries that pop up mysteriously every third game or like last 40 games or whatever. Just play your roster.
1:07:40 Speaker 02 The West, the West is so good that you'll finish 14th or 15th in the West anyway. And you'll have organically tanked and everybody won't be so goddamn miserable anymore. That's all.
1:07:50 Bill Simmons? Especially Will Hardy.
1:07:52 Speaker 02 Well, that's why I gave.
1:07:53 Bill Simmons? He's like, guys, I'm not a drinker, but I'm, I'm going to be starting if we're going to suck again because I can't do this a third year.
1:07:59 Speaker 02 But at least for Will Hardy's sake, he has leveraged their own misery into like, I think he's been extended 15 times in the last, I think he's, I think he's contracted like 20, 40 now.
1:08:11 Bill Simmons? Yeah, well, I think Utah is the fifth pick and that might end up being a really good player. So maybe they're good, but Utah, Utah and Toronto, I think are the two that people seem to be whispering about that. And then Atlanta, I think is just interesting in general. I don't even know who would want Trey Young. San Antonio, I think keeps two, at least that's, that's the word. But there's, there's been a lot of KD stuff this week.
1:08:37 Speaker 02 A lot of KD.
1:08:37 Bill Simmons? And that seemed like a possible home for him. I still feel like towns for KD is in play too.
1:08:42 Speaker 02 By the way, one of my favorite things has been like how every time anyone says that KD's almost a lock to get traded, it gets aggregated as if it's some big story like KD's getting traded.
1:08:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:08:53 Speaker 02 KD's not, KD's not going to be on the Suns next year. Like we could, we could put that one to bed. Just wait and see what the trade is.
1:08:59 Bill Simmons? Well, the stuff, the stuff that was this week about how Bradley Beal, they're stuck with him. They might have to buy him out. He's got two years left. I think at like 53 and 57, my guess is they're not going to buy him out. Anyway, we'll see what happens. We have plenty of time to talk about this. So we're going to be doing pods next week in, in the great state of Indianapolis.
1:09:22 Speaker 02 That's right, baby. Nap Town, we're coming. Do people call it Nap Town anymore?
1:09:26 Bill Simmons? Jalen Rose does. That was, that was the first time I'd heard it.
1:09:29 Speaker 02 That's good enough for me. You know, I'm just going to throw this out here. You would know this. You would not necessarily know this, but you would know how, how realistic of a question this is. I asked some of the Pacers people this when they were in New York up 3-1 last week.
1:09:43 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:09:44 Speaker 02 It's a near and dear question to your heart and probably one that you've thought about and know the background of better than I do. Do we get a legend appearance in Indiana for a game, for one of the home finals games?
1:09:56 Bill Simmons? I mean, if you want to get the crowd involved to bring the house down, I think it's a good idea. He lives in Indiana. Why wouldn't he?
1:10:03 Speaker 02 Well, he lives in Florida. He lives in Florida a lot. I don't know where he is day to day right now, but I know he's got a place in, in somewhere in Florida.
1:10:11 Bill Simmons? If I'm the Pacers and I, and it's 1-1 heading into game three, I'm trotting out every Indiana legend I have for game three.
1:10:21 Speaker 02 All of them.
1:10:21 Bill Simmons? Reggie Miller's in there.
1:10:23 Speaker 02 I've heard nobody bring this up yet. Like I, when the Pacers went up three, whatever in the conference finals, it was one of the first things that popped in my head. Are we going to go to Larry Legend appearance in Indiana if they made the finals? I was not given an answer.
1:10:38 Bill Simmons? My laptop battery is about to run out, so we have to go.
1:10:41 Speaker 02 Sweet.
1:10:41 Bill Simmons? I'm, I'm sorry I brought up you, Todd. I didn't realize it was going to make you so angry.
1:10:45 Speaker 02 I'm not angry. I just, it's just, we just, we just watched an incredible finals game.
1:10:50 Bill Simmons? We talked about it for an hour.
1:10:52 Speaker 02 I still don't really know what happened. I can't, I'm gonna have to go back and.
1:10:55 Bill Simmons? What do you think the line is on Fanduel for the series now?
1:10:58 Speaker 02 I don't speak gambling, so you're gonna have to tell me what the, it was like minus seven, 700 before the series.
1:11:04 Bill Simmons? It sure was.
1:11:05 Speaker 02 So I'm gonna guess my totally uneducated gambling mind, I'm gonna guess it's minus 375.
1:11:12 Bill Simmons? See, look at you, minus 330. Okay, so favorite. Okay, C to win in five, still in play. Zach Lowe, pleasure. Are you doing a little mini game two preview pod possibly?
1:11:23 Speaker 02 I was, it was gonna be a struggle if it was just Oklahoma City wins by 18. Now I'm doing a mini game two preview pod. We'll either tape it tomorrow night or Saturday morning and, and because this is the joy of having two days off between games. You get to really sink your teeth into these things.
1:11:37 Bill Simmons? Keep it, keep, uh, keep it going. Cause then you got Monday too. When we're, when we're in Indiana, I'm gonna ask you to rank your favorite Ringer people you've potted with so far. I'm just gonna force you to do it. It'd be great. Cost some team dissension. Remind them.
1:11:51 Speaker 02 Get the locker room.
1:11:52 Bill Simmons? Zach doing rankings. Yeah, get the locker room rankled. Uh, Zach Lowe, pleasure as always. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo for helping us with the live stream. So thanks for everybody for checking in. What a game. We really lucked out. Uh, we'll see you next time. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Zach and Eduardo and Gahal as well for helping us make it and go live on YouTube. That was super fun. I'm going to be back on Sunday, right after game two, we'll be doing this podcast with Priscilla and we're gonna do it live on YouTube like we did game one. And you have the weekend to watch Working Girl for the rewatchables. That's coming on Monday. It's a great movie. Watch it with the whole family. It's a good one. Uh, enjoy the weekend. I will see you on Sunday night.
1:12:47 Bill Simmons? Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York.
Previous Why Did the Knicks Fire Thibs? Plus, a Belichick Debate (and More) With Pablo Torre Next SGA’s Game 2 Masterpiece, Summer NBA Chaos Watch, McDavid’s Cup Quest, and ‘Tires’ With Ryen Russillo Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated