Hour 1: Victor Wembanyama’s Huge Game 1 and More with Guest Host Tom Pelissero

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1:22moment. Now, on with the show. The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Tom Pelissero. God, I love that guy. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Victor Wimanyama, six feet behind the line. Today's guests, NFL Network insider Mike Garofalo, Pro Football Hall of Famer Randy Moss. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pelissero.

1:57Tom Pelissero:Welcome to a Rich Eisenless edition of the Rich Eisen Show. Tom Pelissero, pleased to be here in studio in Los Angeles with my boys in the studio. Chris Brockman. Hey, Tommy. Looking fresh. A full night of sleep. Oh, the bags. Even after two overtimes. The bags came. I was able to shave and brush my teeth and all that. You don't have a backup shaver? Come on. Backup shaver? No. With the bags in one piece. So you got to cycle back yesterday. You were on very little sleep. Very little sleep. Bags left after a golf tournament. Yep. Bags didn't make the connection. Had to pick them up yesterday afternoon.

2:35Everything was there. Everything was great. Bags, clubs, all in one piece. Able to shave. Where's the trophies? Oh, the trophy. I will break out the trophy. I did bring it. Did that? It actually made it in one piece. Yeah.

2:47Tom Pelissero:Put in your checked luggage. Trophy is great. We'll do it later. I once had a bag get fall off the cart at gate check. Ooh. Showed up the next day completely soaking wet because it rained overnight in Indianapolis. That was not the way to come back from the combine. Oh, no. No, no, no. Not ideal. No. Mike Del Tufo here two days in a row setting his own record. 2026 with TJ Jefferson. How we doing? What up, though? I'm just here recording for you. recording yeah we're rich especially for rich like it's mostly me and it is mostly like hey what's up there it is mostly for rich who hates it loves nothing more than the time wasted on this show according to video as i say hello victor women yama oh man let me time dude it it is It's fascinating to watch that game play out because, listen, we have seen some really good moments with Wemby in the playoffs.

3:45Tom Pelissero:We have seen stretches, even games where he has not played well. But when it's on and when the other team appears to have absolutely no answers for anything he does, you do get that feeling that we're witnessing something that we have not witnessed before. 22 years old as of last night the youngest player ever to have 40 points and 20 rebounds in a playoff game in NBA history and the way that he did it in every regard across the court he made one three pointer in that game only attempted two that one three pointer is a 28 footer on the run with the game on the line 10 seconds to go and needing a three to send it to a second overtime.

4:31Tom Pelissero:Splash. Amazing. There's so many plays. Like, what is he doing? There's so many ways that that can go right there. And there are players who with 10 seconds left are thinking, I'm going to go to the cup here. I'm going to try to get an and one or at least get the two, extend the game, we foul. You could try to get a couple steps closer. You're seven foot three. You probably don't need to have eight feet between you and the defender as you pull the trigger. but if you looked at the fans after he makes that shot they know it's over man there's just every angle i saw george was fans just going that was not supposed to happen that man in that body is not supposed to make that shot in that moment from that spot from 28 feet out i thought it was closer to 30.

5:22Tom Pelissero:The experts say it was 28. It was a long way. Tirico brought it back, too. Remember what years? Was it 2016, 2017? Steph made a shot in that building from the exact same spot. Steph was a little deeper. Was it a little deeper? I mean, it felt like 30 feet. Steph's always a little deeper. He's about 12 inches, 14 inches deeper, so he's got to shoot it farther, technically. But the thing about Steph's doesn't have the wingspan and the size. Steph's was, it was a regular season game, if I recall correctly. this is a playoff game to go to the finals and he pulls up like that it is yeah you're right what he's doing under under the basket on defense the way that it's impacting everything else on the floor everything the fact that he plays so much of the game facing the basket at his size like i've understood when when nicole yokich is playing well which he did not play well in the playoffs this year but when they were at their best when they were winning an nba title a lot of his game was still back to the basket and just being a big brute who could work you down dare the double team to come and then pass out of it when we play so much of his game facing the basket because there's so many different ways that he can beat you he opened that night watching the ceremony as shea gildas alexander gets presented the mvp trophy that is how the night begins it's a celebratory moment for sga second consecutive mvp and wendy who at least facially does not show a lot of outward emotion during the game after the game he was asked about a couple of things the message that was sent and also what it felt like watching someone else hold that trophy just curious if that was in your mind at all knowing that she had got that award and you were in the top three for it and you know did any part of tonight feel personal?

7:15Some of your facial expressions kind of look like you were really, really going for it. Yeah, for sure. Everything you just said. What does it feel like to see someone else get the MVP trophy right before you step into, I guess, what is basically the biggest game of your career and then to have the best performance of your career?

7:40Feels like I still got a lot to learn

7:49and I want to get that trophy many times in my career

7:53Tom Pelissero:so small how to ask a question in a press conference note there don't give every possible answer and then ask a yes no question but that is it's a brilliant answer by Webby yes everything you said I don't need to say it but everything you said is absolutely true yes it was personal yes i was feeling it yeah not that you need any additional motivation in game one of the western conference finals but yes i came in with a chip on my shoulder i wanted this more than anybody else your words not mine i felt a certain type of way watching sga get that trophy i mean look at this is not for a tv audience the extension here look at the distance from the basket as he's throwing this down the alley-oop and the block late everything he does comes from angles that would be impossible for any other player right now in the nba and again chet holmgren and victor wembin yama that is 15 feet and almost 400 pounds of pure battle between the two of them right there i love that they do not like that was not much of a battle last night Well, I mean, Chet gets the block at the end of regulation.

9:07Tom Pelissero:He sent it to overtime. One of the few times you caught Wemby off balance. There it is right there. Let's put stats up against one another. Like I'm saying, this was not. I know, but that was a sick play by Chet, man. Granted. Granted. Three seconds left. He's going to throw up a floater, and they're going to win this at the buzzer. And Chet said, nuh-uh. I can't believe we're even trying to give Chet props. I'm talking about props on this play. All right. All right. Sure. Yeah. He took that shot to the face and crumbled into a mess and didn't get the flagrant call, but he did. That's the most memorable thing besides the block, I think, from Chet in that game.

9:41Tom Pelissero:I thought, and listen, we can argue, I know you'd like to, TJ, the value of plus minus in these games. Wemby's plus 16 last night. Shea is minus 15. They only lost the game by seven points, which means the Thunder are plus eight with SGA off the court. the NBA MVP off the court and minus 15 with him on it. You go 7-23 from the field, that tends to be what happens. He did turn it on late, obviously made some plays. That's a rough game to be handed that trophy and come out the way that SGA and the Thunder did. I have been saying this for a while that it is going to be Victor's league at some point.

10:24We just saw who the best player in the league is. Hands down. I don't care who has the MVP trophy. Wemby is the best player in the NBA, and I don't think he's going to give this up for like seven, eight years if he doesn't get injured.

10:37Tom Pelissero:Here's what Mitch Johnson had to say post-game about Wemby's performance as well. Mitch. I thought his level of physicality and execution through physicality was tremendous. His rebounding obviously shows itself in the box score, but was off the charts defensively. He was in a stance almost all night. and I thought he did a good job of and the guys along with him just being stubborn in terms of they made some shots and they did obviously you got to give up something when you try to take things away and at times when they made shots or they made us pay for whatever we were trying to do we stuck with it and he led the way 49 big minutes and it was high level for the majority of those.

11:21Tom Pelissero:I know it's it's loud in Oklahoma city where Mitch is going to need a lozenge. We're going to need to get him a nice cup of hot tea sometime before game two. That is a man who has used all the voice that he possibly could muster, uh, over the past 24 hours here. Here's where these debates become hard for me. And this is across all sports is when we immediately jumped to last night's the night when we became the best player in the NBA. This was the moment. I saw in reading various stories this morning that this was the broad take from people who cover the NBA for a living. I cover the NFL. I'm familiar with the hot takes and the recency bias.

12:01Tom Pelissero:And this is taking nothing away from Wemby, who is clearly one of the best players in the NBA over the course of the season. In my mind, when we're talking about the best, not the most talented, which Wemby certainly has a case for. It's probably an open and shut case at this point. When we're talking about the best, in my mind, we're still talking about the people who do it again and again and again. It is not the quarterback that gets hot down the stretch. It's not the hitter that has a really good World Series. It's the guy who, time and again, game after game, opportunity after opportunity, delivers at a higher rate than everybody else.

12:39Tom Pelissero:Because nobody is 100 % at anything in pro sports. You're going to miss shots. You're going to strike out. You're going to throw an interception. But how do you minimize the number of times that you are not at your best? And so, to me, we have seen Wemby at times in these playoffs. People have figured him out. People have at least for a quarter, even a full game at times, or half a game when he tries to decapitate Nas Reed with an elbow. they have figured out ways here to get under his skin to throw him off his game which was what came to mind when we heard Mark Dagenalt the Oklahoma City Thunder coach speak about Wemby and the potential adjustments after the game I mean we're gonna have to figure that out you know like they're they're good schematically they obviously have a lot of tools with the point of attack defenders and with Wem and Yama there's a reason they are where they are but there's a reason we are where we are you know and one of the things that I love about this team is our problem solving.

13:40We've been in these series before. We've hit these types of plateaus. We gave ourselves, obviously, a chance to win despite that tonight with our defense and the way that we played, but we've got to solve a few problems and be better in game two.

13:55Tom Pelissero:And so this is the question. If you were in the problem-solving mindset as Oklahoma City coming off that game, where do you begin with Wemby? You have clues. In the first round, he had one game where he was not offensively efficient. I would say the first game of the Minnesota series was as poorly as we've seen Wemby play, if not the entire season, certainly in the playoffs. What did the Timberwolves do to him in that game? They didn't try to match him length for length. They put people who could be physical with him, challenge him, get into his body, which is hard to do for the same reason that if you've got a pass rusher with 36-inch arms, You better have an offensive tackle with really long arms, too, or he's going to no matter what you do to him, he can get around you.

14:44Tom Pelissero:He has the advantage. I don't know if that is putting a smaller person on Wemby. If it is doubling him constantly, he's a good passer. He's not a Jokic level passer. Brockman, in your mind, if you are your starting point as the problem solving Oklahoma City Thunder, what are you doing matchup wise or schematically in game two to try to reduce him to again a player that not often but we have seen when we become in these playoffs he just had a game uh tj that it's a russell type performance wilt those are the game the names that were coming to mind with what he was doing those guys obviously didn't shoot threes like he did but you said he only made one but he made the biggest one of the night i i like the idea of being physical with him i just don't know who you do it with is it Lou Dort who's giving up eight nine inches but maybe has the beef to do it Chet certainly isn't going to be physical with them Wemby you know eight is launch aside from the block at the at the end of regulation or do you just let Wemby go wild and hope that the other guys don't beat you it seems like that's the strategy maybe I would go for don't let Castle Vassell all these other guys get open shots and open threes and knock those down.

16:04I don't know.

16:06Tom Pelissero:Everything you said just to come up with, I don't know because you're right. It just feels like the Spurs, I know it's one game, but it's game one in their building where the MVP now gets the trophy for the second year in a row and they just stole all the momentum of this series. They stole home court. The title odds are basically even now. It feels like it's the Spurs title to lose at this point and the issue you have is to your point if you basically just dare him just put everybody on wemby prevent him from getting it guys like castle and vassell and harper have been hitting shots right really since the back half of the minnesota series so i tend to agree don't let the best player beat you make them beat you left-handed the problem is when we can play left-handed right-handed both-handed no-handed and he creates mismatches every time that the ball gets near him.

17:02Tom Pelissero:De 'Aaron Fox didn't even play last night. And that also has to be. That's something. For Shea to go 7-23. That's something to make you a little wary right there. Shea goes 7-23 and is minus 15 on a night that De 'Aaron Fox, who when we talked with Vincent Goodwill yesterday, that was one of his thoughts for how do you guard SGA is you throw Fox at him at times. He's not even on the floor. So I know this. If the Thunder are going to win this series, if they're going to be problem solvers, their best player can't be Alex Caruso. So no offense to him. No, he was amazing last night. He was. He had a game.

17:34Tom Pelissero:He also he also was on the receiving end of the one the one bizarre Wemby flop in the game. If you saw when Wemby comes up to him and for no apparent reason, 35 feet from the basket, lowers his shoulder into him and then belly flops. Mark Daggalt's going, what? That's a foul. What are we doing? What is this? Caruso. I mean, if he plays like that, great. He can't be your best player through the course of this series. Minnesota gave up on putting Rudy Gobert on Victor Wemanyama. Obviously, Game 5, Game 6 didn't go well for them. But when it worked, like in Game 1, that seemed to have something to it.

18:11Tom Pelissero:If it ends up being you just have to throw different matchups to them until you figure it out, that's the definition of problem-solving. Martin Dagnall wants to be the ultimate problem-solving team, problem-solving coach. you got literally the biggest problem in the nba right now on your hands and you've got three to six games to figure this thing out we get more into this phone lines open throughout the course of the show 844-204 rich we also got nfl news just moments ago coming out of the league meeting we will get into that we can play the win loss game brockman tj all you listening to watching can throw any questions you want tom palacero in for rich it's may 19th never too early to talk NFL.

18:52Tom Pelissero:Bring on your questions right after this. The Rich Eisen Show podcast.

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21:33Tom Pelissero:Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show here across our radio network. We got NFL news momentarily, but since we started off the show talking about Wemby, going for 41-24 in the best performance we've seen so far in these playoffs game, one of the Western Conference Finals. The question was raised. If you're Oklahoma City and you profess to be a problem-solving team, what do you do now? Sam in Fort Worth, Texas. You got any bright ideas how the Thunder can adjust to stop Wemby at this point? Tom, two things. Love it when you're there. Certainly love Susie, but love it when you're there. One, I need you to give me a breakdown of whatever happened to Boston College.

22:14They used to cause all kinds of problems for people and seem like they've gone silent. But regarding the Thunder, the Thunder fan, I'm from Oklahoma originally. They're smart. They had six opportunities to learn about them in the regular season, if I remember right. Why are you just now going to take last night's data and learn something? You should have learned that a long time ago. The Thunder, to me, are the only team that could go zone, have height on the sides and in the middle, and they're athletic enough to move around and cover the court. If you didn't learn something in the regular season, what did you learn last night?

22:54I don't see how you do anything but go zone on them. Lose some pride. You're more than athletic and tall enough unlike anyone else. I think that's their only option there. Move him outside and leave him. If he comes in the middle, you've got height to stop him.

23:08Tom Pelissero:It's a great thought, Sam. Appreciate the call. They do. I mean, they have height. And I think at this point we can establish that you don't want Chet Holmgren defending Wemby on a possession in possession out basis through the course of the game. The issue you run into again is all those other players, even on a night without De 'Aaron Fox, are shooting the daylights out. it's happened throughout the playoffs especially from about the middle of the minnesota series on game five game six and then obviously in game one the castles and vassals and harpers of the world not to mention dearon foxes if he's able to get back from his injury those guys have been deadly from the outside so in essence that goes back to what the thought was here which was do you just dare everybody else to beat you then you run into the question of does wendy just start shooting more threes.

23:58Tom Pelissero:He did. He took two threes last night. He made one. It was the biggest shot in the playoffs so far. Can you choose that? I don't think you can play in the NBA. You're not going to play zone the entire game, but do you mix more of that in? Do you show different looks? You run the risk of communication errors and things, people not being on the same page, but maybe we see some of that. Maybe that is part of the answer. And when it's not, when you're going man to man, maybe you're trying a little bit of the Minnesota method, which is get into his body, make him feel it physically. All those ridiculous pregame drills, if you've seen those, the Wemby does, standing on one foot and being shoved, which I find hilarious, because if you were really practicing what happens in the games, wouldn't one out every five times he gets pushed by that little guy, he'd just fall over and flop and lose the ball?

24:43Tom Pelissero:Wouldn't that be part of the pregame drills if you're really rehearsing what you're doing? Interesting accusation. I would think that would be part of it. You know, talking about the threes, they actually didn't even shoot that well from three last night. Oklahoma City made four more threes than they did. So outscored them by 12 there. Almost all Alex Caruso. Eight for Caruso, nine for everyone else. Right. They just got badly out-rebounded. 61 rebounds for San Antonio, only 40 for Oklahoma City. So they lost about all the boards and ultimately lost the game. And again, 24 of those boards are for Wemby, which it's part of why that was such a unique performance.

25:18Tom Pelissero:Youngest player ever to have a 40-20 game in the playoffs. But the question I ask again, And everyone wants to today wake up and say, oh, now he's the best player in the NBA. Let's see it again and again and again. Let's see it through a full series. He's certainly up there. Don't get me wrong. But greatness is forged in the NBA and other pro sports by the ability to be consistent and do it on the biggest stage repeatedly. Let's see what answers Oklahoma City gets. If you lose game two at home, I don't want to say it's over, but it's over. You're not getting back through there giving up two at home.