Hour 1: Spurs-Knicks Game 3, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, plus Brendan Sorsby Backlash

23:17Brian Windhorst:And to be honest with you, to be honest with you, I'm keeping an eye on it as much as I can because I don't trust it. Well, I think it's keeping an eye on you, Brian.

23:26Rich Eisen:Right. When I was a kid,

23:28Brian Windhorst:Chucky was a whole thing, and I'm a little off-put. I'm not going to turn off the light. I'm just going to leave it like that.

23:35Rich Eisen:Fantastic. Brian Windhorst in Stephen A's office here after Game 3 of the NBA Finals from New York City on the Rich Eisen Show. What was it like last night? Was it a different vibe than usual in Madison Square Garden?

23:49Brian Windhorst:So here's the only way it was different. So more security. So obviously the entire area around the garden was messed up. And actually Jay Williams said to me, I've never been to a Super Bowl. Jay Williams said this whole thing felt like a Super Bowl because, you know, celebrities galore, super high security. and it's an event that takes up blocks around and there's a security perimeter. I've been to big bowl games and that's kind of what it feels like. So that's what it was like to get in. Here's how it was only materially different. The arena was jammed full 45 minutes to an hour before the game.

24:29Brian Windhorst:I was thinking, boy, I wonder if people are going to be able to get in. That was the opposite thing. The entire arena was filled. And so as a result, the energy and the and then the knicks and the knicks do this and a lot of teams do this for every game but they have like pre-packaged highlights with inspiring video to be on the scoreboard except for usually it's playing for people eating hot dogs and like not paying attention and like maybe eight or nine thousand people this time all 20 000 people were in their seats being inspired being fired up by the videos and when the knicks ran out to do their final warm-up 20 minutes before the game it sounded like somebody just hit a game-winning shot to win at the buzzer of the fourth quarter.

25:07Brian Windhorst:The energy in the building was very, very high. And so that was really the only material difference, was the energy that was happening before tip-off and when the Knicks took the court. Once the game got started, and by the way, it affected the Spurs so dramatically that they got off to a 7-0 lead before the Knicks scored and led by 10 in the first quarter. It didn't affect the Spurs at all. If anything, it possibly inspired them. And no matter what happened, no matter where you are on the spectrum, the president was gone by early in the fourth quarter the game was a one-point game going into the fourth quarter all of that stuff was irrelevant when it came right down to it i'm sure it's really good for storytelling and memories but i do not think any of that had a material outcome on the

25:52Rich Eisen:game all right so then the um the game itself what what were the spurs able to affect in game three that the games one and two they could not yeah so most of the time when you when you a

26:04Brian Windhorst:superstar player in a big moment or really in any game but really in a big moment game you see that i mean you've seen this from lebron you saw this from jordan you can go down the line here you see a player come out and want to set up and establish his teammates and then save his energy and save his influence for the later in the game the superstars tend to make their move in the fourth quarter it's so there are thoroughbreds who typically make late runs obviously if they get red hot in the first quarter. Not like they're going to pass up shots, but I don't think Victor Wembenyama, at least at this point in his career, is wired that way.

26:40Brian Windhorst:I think what we've seen in these big, giant games in the conference finals and finals is you almost know within the first two or three minutes whether he's got his fastball. And I think his energy is something that sort of, at this point in his career, sort of ebbs and flows. and he needs to be a high energy player because what differentiates him isn't just his size it's his size with the skill and part of his skill is the mobility and his ability to go in and out and up and down the court and i just felt in games one and two he didn't have that and you know his numbers were good his numbers were misleading like if you didn't watch the games and you were just like well he's averaging 27 and 10 why are you saying he's not playing well i'd be like well because he's shooting 40 % and he's got 10 turnovers in two games.

27:26Brian Windhorst:And he just was trailing plays a lot. He wasn't leading plays. Totally, totally, totally different Victor Weminyama. Like, by the way, we saw in, like, game sixes and seven of the Western Conference Finals. He had three dunks in the first five minutes of the game. I think he only had two dunks in the first two games combined and played inside out, looking for the lobs. Only one lob for a dunk in games one and two combined, four. In game three. I mean, you could just see his total difference in the way he was moving. And then, you know, Steph Castle, who is not at this point in his career in the lead offensive player, has 18 first half points.

28:03Brian Windhorst:A lot of it coming from pure aggression, aggression drives. And he makes the biggest shot of the game with three-pointer later. But 18 points in the first half for Steph and Castle, that is not what you normally see. So really, I mean, I already knew this about the Spurs. It's not like they needed to be, not like we needed to see this game to know this, but they had a 22-year-old Wembenyama, 21-year-old Castle. The two of them combined to go 19 of 32 for, I think, 50-something points. And Dylan Harper, not only is he fearless going to the basket, like that's what we've already seen, he's fearless going to the rebounds because what happened in this game was that Mitch Johnson, the Spurs coach, decided to lean into his best players, and he played small in the fourth quarter of this game.

28:53Brian Windhorst:He went with De 'Aaron Fox, who made one of the biggest clutch shots of the game. He went with Harper, and he went with Castle, all those three guards. And he actually had Devin Vassell out there. So he basically had four guards and one banyama in the fourth quarter in these vital minutes. And Harper rebounded his backside off. He had five rebounds in the fourth quarter alone, and that ended possessions. and kept the Spurs with their head above water with that small lineup against the bigger Knicks. So I really, the takeaway was, Victor had energy from the tip-off, and their young guys played great.

29:31Rich Eisen:They did. They sure did. And Wambunyama on defense, I've never seen anything like it. I mean, the guy is beaten off a dribble, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because he's going to close, because he's so, you know, he's like an avatar. that block on Landry Shammett, perfect example. Shammett's like, I got this. No, you don't. And the number of times the Knicks, if they finally get their offensive set rolling with more than 10 seconds left on the 24, which is rare, and they do beat the perimeter defense, Wambanyama's there to send them back out or Cornette has been playing his head off too.

30:19Rich Eisen:And so that's the issue is how do the Knicks get back to what was in the first two games of this series? And there are some people who are blaming the vibe and the building, but you're saying that wasn't an issue. And then - In my view, it was not ultimately an issue.

30:37Brian Windhorst:Maybe it was an issue at some point in the game and it certainly was an issue for fans. I mean, the city was very disrupted yesterday. But again, it's a one-point game going into the fourth quarter, and Trump's on his way to JFK. I mean, what do you want me to say? Well, the officiating as well.

30:56Rich Eisen:Mike Brown calls it out. Overall, the Spurs took 10 more free throws than the Knicks. And the Knicks missed their first nine three-pointers in the fourth quarter. That's no bueno. know play better than the refs ref because the spurs with eight plus minutes to go in the quarter were already in the bonus with zero fouls called on them do you have any comment on the officiating

31:19Brian Windhorst:yeah so the real thing that that the knicks are going to circle is in the second half the free throws were 24 to 8 and that's infuriated the fans and listening to the fans post game this is what they were talking about this is what they were talking about in the concourse. I was in the concourse for a little bit after the game. And this is what they obviously were talking about on social. And certainly it became a talking point because Mike Brown came out and made it a direct part of his post-game press conference. So a couple of things. I think there are two things that were a factor. Number one, the game was played at very, very high physicality.

31:58Brian Windhorst:This series has been played at very high physicality. When you see the replays today, which you will see in many places of of when banyama like shoving down uh jalen brunson in an obvious you know non-call that you know borderline could have been reviewed for a flagrant i i don't think it would have been a flagrant but if they reviewed it and what i'm saying is the foul was of a nature where if it had been called i could have seen them review it for a flagrant and then was not called was infuriating but if you watch the replay 10 feet away carl towns is getting manhandled by keldin johnson and like you could probably isolate cameras on players on these hand-to-hand combats throughout the whole first step by the way both ways the knicks weren't as aggressive with it as the spurs were the spurs specifically looked like they were targeting brunson no doubt in my mind but it was very aggressive both ways and then and the referees were basically letting it go to the point where if you watch the broadcast, Mike Breen said at one point, the referees might have to start calling some more fouls here.

33:04Brian Windhorst:All right. And we don't see Breen comment on officiating too much, but Breen knows the game and can feel the game. And then the reason that things got wonky here is that all of a sudden the officials started calling the game tight and that the Knicks felt that more than the Spurs did. There was only two total fouls difference in the game. And in the second half, it was 15-10, so a little bit bigger of a spread. But the Knicks also fouled a couple of times at the end of the game to put the Spurs on the line. But because the Knicks fouled in these quick little spates,

33:45Brian Windhorst:they got into the bonus.

33:47Rich Eisen:The Spurs got into the bonus very quickly. Eight minutes to go in the quarter, Brian. Rich. You know, that was a mess.

33:54Brian Windhorst:The Knicks were called for three fouls in the first 65 seconds of the fourth quarter.

33:57Rich Eisen:Yeah, and I'm sitting there, obviously, with a bias. I've been straightforward about it. Because, again, it needed to be called both ways. And it felt as if it was not. So what happens now between games three and four? Who talks to officials? Do officials get talked to? Like, what does happen in between these games leading to a massive game four? A massive game four in which the Spurs can completely flip the script and go home with a home court advantage. What a huge game Wednesday is now.

34:35Brian Windhorst:I'm excited about it. Sure, no, I think everybody is. Yeah, yes, and Mike Brown knows all this, which is why he made a premeditated decision to come in there and talk about it. And, you know, I've known Mike Brown and covered him in playoff series now for over 20 years. and i remember vividly in 2007 he had just been a head coach for two years and the cat he was coaching the calves and they were playing and one of the guys that that mike studied under like mike has a remarkable resume he coached under steve kerr won a championship coached under greg popovich won a championship coached under rick carlisle where they had a couple of um you know huge seasons, including the brawl season, where he famously is in some of the footage pulling Pacers players off the court.

35:21Brian Windhorst:But one of the guys historically who is historically great at working the officials in a playoff series is Rick Carlisle. OK, so he was channeling Rick Carlisle. And but anyway, in 2007, I specifically remember the Cavs lost in the conference finals to the Pistons. The games were close. LeBron was getting hacked, you know, to the Cavs fans thought so. and there was like this same sort of call the call for the make a comment on the officiating and mike brown came out into the post-game press conference after game two in detroit and said we are a no excuse team we're not going to complain about officiating and i remember sitting in this in the press conference going wow that's not what i expected but it's what his team he felt needed at that time by the way they won the next four games and because his rebound situation and you know mike would be the first to tell you he's misread plenty of situations, but his read for what his team needed in that situation was not to lean on the officiating.

36:22Rich Eisen:Does the association talk about it, though? I mean, what happens between games three and four?

36:29Brian Windhorst:What the NBA would tell you is that they will go through the standard process that they go through after every game, whether there's complaints about the officiating or not. but history tells us that occasionally not every time but occasionally officiating can be impacted by things like this which is why mike brown did this what is interesting to me is if you look at the quotes that came out of the knicks players and if you look at the the vibe that came out of the knicks locker room based on the folks that i talked to the players were not complaining about the officiating mike brown complained about it because i think he did it for a political reason.

37:10Brian Windhorst:And so basically is this. Maybe it works, Rich, or maybe it doesn't, but historically there have been times when it works. And Game 4 is very important, and I think it was a strategic decision and it could have been a smart decision.

37:22Rich Eisen:Last one for you here, Brian. Why does the NBA not allow unlimited challenges for teams who get them right? Why do they run out of them in a game like this? I think both I understand you want to keep on challenging and having the game extended and it stops and it stops and it stops. But if you get them right, you shouldn't lose the right to continue to challenge.

37:48Brian Windhorst:This doesn't help the Knicks fans situation on this because they realize that there were two calls that Mike Brown made that had gone against them that should have been were corrected. I think it's done to not slow the game down. The irony of this is Victor Wembenyama played the entire fourth quarter of this game. Obviously, it's a hugely important fourth quarter. I think he scored 10 points in it. He doesn't typically do that. He typically comes out. And by the way, in the playoffs, there have been times where Wembenyama has come out of the game and they've gotten drilled. And this helped Victor, I think, because the reviews were built-in timeouts.

38:26Brian Windhorst:So not only were there a lot of free throws for him to rest on, but there were these effective timeouts. You're only allowed to call four timeouts in the fourth quarter, and inside two minutes, you're only allowed to call one, and you're only allowed to call three inside a certain number of time. And they got extra timeouts because of the reviews. And so I think the purpose of it is to not have seven reviews in the fourth quarter of a game because you're continuing to do it. But I agree. The team is penalized for having the success. Yes, not only that, when you do it the second time, you don't get your timeout back.

39:03Brian Windhorst:You only get your timeout back after the first one. That's crazy. So it's a fair question. It's a fair thing. I mean, the NBA needs to look at three or four things. I'm not sure that's number one or number two. But certainly, there was probably a moment or two that the Knicks would have liked to have had their challenge to review in the last minute or last 90 seconds last night. All right.

39:22Rich Eisen:I lied. Last question. I was about to say, this is the most important final question I can have for you. Everything's fine.

39:28Brian Windhorst:Everything's fine. It's the last most important question. It's a beautiful chair. Let me just say it's a beautiful chair. I'm very happy. I'm very happy. Where's my lunch?

39:39Rich Eisen:Bring me my lunch. Does Stephen A. know you're in his office?

39:43Brian Windhorst:No. Now he does. In all honesty, there's a bunch of people who work out here. We were going to do this in a studio, but there was something all about the lighting. So we couldn't do it. And we came to the outside and some people who sit outside here and we said, hey, do you think Stephen A would mind? And like there were three people and they all kind of gave different looks. You know, like one person was like, no problem. You know, he's but the other person kind of gave a look like. So, you know, if you see me on the, you know, on the street, you'll know what happened.

40:20Rich Eisen:Understood. Brian, thanks for the time and for putting everything at risk. I greatly appreciate it. Brian Wynhorst and the Hoop Collective podcast. And of course, our favorite right here on the Rich Eisen Show. All right, let's take a break right here on the program. Phone calls 844-204-RICH. Number to dial George Kittle is up next, along with an overreaction Monday on a Tuesday. That's next hour, but we've got to finish this one coming up. The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast.

40:52Rich Eisen:Rich Eisen here. Take a second and look at your city's calendar. Everywhere I go, there's always something coming up. Games, concerts, conventions, tournaments, the kind of events that bring people in from all over. And when that happens, you can feel it. More energy, more fans, and a whole lot more people looking for a place to stay. So here's something to think about. If your city has that kind of buzz, if big events are on the way, listing your space on Airbnb could be a great opportunity. If you're already planning to be out of town or you've got a trip coming up, why not make your place work for you while you're gone?

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42:22Rich Eisen:4-4-2-0-4-RICH, number to dial Terzo in Iowa. All rise, let's take his call. What's up, Terzo? How are you, sir? Hello! Hello! Hello! What's up? Rich, I got to tell you, that interview that you had with DP was absolutely phenomenal. Thank you. That brought back so many memories. Obviously, I've been listening to you for the entirety that your show's been on the air. Obviously, I've listened to DP throughout my entire life. to listen to you guys chop it up and just be yourselves. That was phenomenal. I really did enjoy that. Thank you. And I got to agree with Windhorse, man. It does bring a little bit of levity to the whole entire situation, especially kind of with everything that's going on.

43:07Rich Eisen:So that was great to go back down that memory lane. Thanks. And I got to tell you, you guys are two of the best interviewers, And I must say this is it's you ask a question and you want to hear a good answer and you allow for the conversation to go on. So kudos to you, my man. That was a great interview. And I can't wait for the rest of them. I appreciate you say that. The Berman episode's out right now. Terzo, thank you for the call. Appreciate it. That's Terzo. There he goes, everybody. Do we have time to play this or we're out of time for the rest of this hour? Okay. Okay. yeah actually no let me go here let's wait and we'll show the chris berman clip later on talking about the nfl draft it's really classic the uh brendan soarsby ruling the more i think about it the more angry i'm getting do you see the big 10 is reportedly thinking of of telling its member schools you cannot play texas tech in any sport i saw a few of the schools that already Nebraska and somebody else.

44:15Rich Eisen:And I guess that's punishment for trying to defang the NCAA for good? Is that what it is? We'll talk about this with Jay Billis later on. I mean, Texas Tech shouldn't have attempted to keep Brendan Soresby. Is that what they're saying? Kind of. Like, your guy got caught doing something that's pretty much the worst thing you can do in sports. Right. Because it messes with the integrity of the game and you're thinking about it. And you're just like, oh, let me find a judge who'll say he can play you know who said it yesterday it was josh pay you can find a judge to say pretty much anything you want them to say right if you look hard the fact that texas tech even attempted it right it should be punished it's like come on man well it this sort of insanity is because there's no central office like if if we're going to defang the central office for good because that's what this does it it again it's basically as if if you're taking your kid's phone away as punishment for something let's say your kid did something completely egregious and you're trying to discipline your child to teach them you can't do this this is something you can't do so we're going to take your phone away just giving an example and then your child basically says you you are causing me irreparable harm that can't be overcome because if you're taking my phone away, I'm no longer able to text my friends and find out about some concert that I could go to.

45:45Rich Eisen:And if I miss the concert, that's irreparable harm. Yeah, I'm outcast. I'm now missing a concert. It's a once in a lifetime situation. I'm suddenly no longer as popular with my friends. You're causing me irreparable harm. And the answer is these are called consequences for your actions. You can't fire me for this. Let's say you're fired from your job because of your behavior. You can't fire me for this. You should actually be supporting me and trying to help me out.

46:18Rich Eisen:As opposed to giving me consequences for my actions. it's absolutely runs counter to what we're trying to do as parents what we're trying to do as employees and we're employers or colleagues nuts absolutely nuts that there's a judge saying there's irreparable harm because you're not supporting brendan soresby's return from actions that are so egregious, you feel the need to punish him.

46:55Rich Eisen:And I guess now Big Ten schools or what Georgia's apparently reportedly involved in this, some other SEC schools, they're just going to take matters into their own hands and say, Texas Tech, you're off our schedule. For all sports. Which isn't fair to the people who aren't gambling as part of their sports there at Texas Tech. This is what happens when everything goes off the rails as it has. The Ridge Eisen Show Podcast. The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels.

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