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- [00:02]
Mike Wilbon
This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time, with services like Prime Video, Amazon Music and fast free delivery, prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon. Tom Cruise told the Hollywood Reporter that he wants to keep working into his 100 stone. How about you?
- [00:42]
Tony Kornheiser
I'm Tony Korniser.
- [00:43]
Mike Wilbon
Same.
- [00:44]
Tony Kornheiser
I'm just three years away. Yeah, you know, I want to do.
- [00:47]
Mike Wilbon
Look, Tom Cruise brought this up and he still looks great, but he looks weathered. He doesn't look as young as he used to. He's not as young and as pretty as Rob Lowe anymore. I still love to watch Tom Cru, but lami, come on now. Hundreds. He's 40 years from that.
- [01:04]
Tony Kornheiser
When you say he looks weathered, he's 62 years old. I think he looks great.
- [01:08]
Mike Wilbon
He does.
- [01:09]
Tony Kornheiser
I'd love to look like Tom Cruise. Don't be serious. I'd love to. Welcome to PTI the boy, Rob Lowe. Today's episode. The Panthers win game seven. Scottie Scheffler wins his third major in the Knicks head to the Eastern Conference finals. But we begin today with with the Oklahoma City Thunder crushing the Denver Nuggets to win their series in seven games and become the last team to advance to the conference finals. Denver actually led by 11 in the fourth and the first quarter. I'm sorry, but was then blitzed in the second quarter and left at the side of the road in the third and the fourth quarters. The final margin here was 32 points. Wilbond, does winning the series in seven games strengthen or lessen your belief in the Thunder? Who you picked and the beginning of the year to win the title?
- [01:53]
Mike Wilbon
I did, Tony and you know, I got real shaky in that Denver series. I was like on edge for a long time because of what Joker can and has done to people. But I'm going to tell you why I'm a little bit strengthened. I don't get carried away now. I'm a little bit strengthened because of a wrinkle that, you know, a coach, a head coach, Mark Daniel and his staff make to say we're going to put a terrific defender, an all league defender, but he's only 6 foot 4 four, maybe six, five, probably six four. We're going to put him in front of Joker and say deny this seven foot behemoth, who you are outweighed by £100, deny him the ball. We're going to have a free safety back there which will be a seven footer, homegrown some of the time. We're going to put him out there, we're going to, we're going to blitz him, we're going to do this thing and we're going to try it really for the first time in Game 7. And it takes stones, it takes intellect, it takes a collective effort and a belief in your coach. And if you're a young team and you can go into the finals and I know I'm pointing out something rather small, Tony, but they know they were struggling at times late in that series. They needed something, they go to it and they get this result where Joker looks merely, you know, all world, not like the best player in the world. He was not that yesterday. And I, I'm, I'm looking at Oklahoma City going bravo, you, you got something here that the stuff that his champions are made of. So I'm thinking, so I'll speak for.
- [03:21]
Tony Kornheiser
The more casual fans when I say this. The game was not worth watching at all. In game two of this series, Oklahoma City beat Denver by 43 points. And in game seven, Oklahoma City beat Denver by 32 points. Both of those wins came after losses as Oklahoma City attempted to establish they were the better team and they are the significantly better team than Denver. Everybody saw it and everybody knows it, including Nikola Jokic, who said afterwards he doesn't think Denver as constituted right now can win championship. Right. So I want to leave that behind and I want to look forward to the conference finals. We are seeing, I think you would agree, we are seeing an NBA where it's the last time around for LeBron. It's the last time around changing of Steph Curry. Mike, there's going to be this year, because Boston is out for the seventh straight year, a different champion in the NBA for the seventh straight year. So what does that tell you? That tells you there is a changing of the guard and it tells you there's more parity because seven different teams in seven different years indicates parity. Mike, we have in the conference finals now, the conference finals, a six seed, a four, four seed and a three seed. Who saw that coming? Nobody is the correct answer. Nobody saw a six, a four and a three. We are going to get now, and I'll be very brief here, we're going to get essentially unknown teams and unknown stars. They're a year or two away. Most of these People, and I hope that's what the NBA wants because the attraction of the heavyweight, long term big time team is out this year. May happen again next year.
- [05:03]
Mike Wilbon
It may be trending out. Let me ask you real quickly. You covered mostly a different NBA. You mentioned the four stars, of course, Brunson, Halliburton, Ant man and Shay. We'll get later into the week into which one of those guys you identify with more. But you covered a league where there were dynastic teams that hung around and were. Muhammad Ali. They were for years. Okay, what do you think of what you're seeing now relative to what you cover?
- [05:27]
Tony Kornheiser
Look, yes, I like dynasties. You know that without liking the Yankees. I like the idea of the Yankees. I like the idea of the Celtics, the idea of the Lakers. I like there to be one big team all the time that everybody takes A shot at UCLA in basketball for 15 years with John Wooden, I like that. So I'm a little leery about this, but it may be time. Let's move to hockey and the results from the weekend. On Saturday, Dallas beat Winnipeg, the overall number one seed. Dallas got a goal in overtime to eliminate the Jets 4, 2 in games. Florida got six goals yesterday in game seven in Toronto to win that series. This is the seventh straight time Toronto has lost a game seven and failed to advance. Wilbon, which Canadian elimination is a bigger deal, the jets or the Leafs?
- [06:11]
Mike Wilbon
Oh, my God, this is so easy for me. The Maple Leafs going out, Tony, the way they went out at home, giving up six goals. It was never competitive. I think it was three nothing. They scored goal and it goes to four. Win very quickly. And watching Austin Matthews face the Maple Leaf Star after the game, it looked like he was presiding over a funeral because he essentially was, in sports vernacular. And Tony, it wasn't just the game seven loss. They lost game five, giving up six goals. They lost those last two games, what, 12 to three? And you're looking at it. Yeah, they cut, they bounced back, they win two nothing. They forced the game seven, but. And I turned on, it was already two nothing. I'm like, what is Toronto's deal, Tony? It's gotta be so hard to be them. It's gotta be like a stretch of decades being the Red Sox or the Cubs or the Knicks who are trying to pull themselves out from under the weight of this pressure as well. I feel for Toronto, I do.
- [07:10]
Tony Kornheiser
Yeah. I'm not gonna take up the cause of Winnipeg here because President's trophy teams lose almost every year. They lose all the time. And whenever we've had PK Suban on. He seemed to always indicate that there was something maybe lacking in Winnipeg. And by the way, whenever I turned on this series, someone in Dallas was having a hat trick. So, you know, I'm going to count. The circumstance with Toronto and Florida is significantly more interesting. Seven straight game seven losses. They have not won a game seven since 2004, Mike. This is like they're being followed around by a pack of vultures. They must smell of decay and death. And the vultures gather around in those seven game seven losses. It's an amazing statistic. They have been outscored 28 to nine. That's so awful. 28 to nine. In Florida's case, they walked into the series. They were 05 all time in series where they started at 02. They started at 02 in this series and then they, in the last five games they scored 19 goals and they gave up eight. They changed their history at the expense of Toronto. That's how that happened. This is, this is, it's tragic. It's tragic poetry, Tony. Toronto, it is tragic.
- [08:28]
Mike Wilbon
The only draft pick they need to make is for a team shrink. The Toronto Maple Leafs and maybe a team of them. Wow, they just get blitzed. I do feel for them. And now to the PGA Championship. Scottie Scheffler was tied at the turn with Jon Rahm Sunday, but pulled away to win by 5. 7 over Rahm. It's Scheffler's third major victory before the age of 30. What does this win in his recent three year run indicate? Tony?
- [09:00]
Tony Kornheiser
Okay, so Scottie Scheffler is the best golfer in the world. I think we really have to start with that. He is also knocking on all time. He just became, by winning the PGA, he became the third person since World War II, let me repeat that, since World War II to win at least three majors and at least 15 PGA Tour events. And I know what you're thinking, Mike. You're thinking, oh, it's five, five, five five five. No, that's okay.
- [09:28]
Mike Wilbon
That's a legit one.
- [09:30]
Tony Kornheiser
This is legit because the other two guys.
- [09:32]
Mike Wilbon
That's the one.
- [09:33]
Tony Kornheiser
Are Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. Yeah, that's it. That's the list. All right. I mean, Scottie Scheffler, this is. He is a very special golfer. He starts out yesterday, he comes in with a three stroke lead. You think he's going to put it away? It's going to be boring. But he's bad on the front. He's plus two on the front and when he turns for 10, he's in a tie, right, with John Ron.
- [09:55]
Mike Wilbon
The same number of majors, not a.
- [09:57]
Tony Kornheiser
Stick, not at the time, by any part of the imagination. So he's been pushing, pulling all of his drives left. Time after time on the front. All the drives are going wildly left. And as our friend Steve Sands from the Golf Channel likes to say, there's no timeout in golf, okay? There's no trip to the mound in golf. You gotta figure it out on your own. And he did. And he did. And in the early parts, Mike, of the back nine, all the drives were straight. And then he got three birdies. And then suddenly, with about four holes to go, he's up by five, as we say, of goalies. He came up large in his own building.
- [10:34]
Mike Wilbon
He had a B minus sort of weekend. Here's the thing to me about Rahm, he was at B minus level for him by his standard that we've seen in a three year run.
- [10:44]
Tony Kornheiser
Plus Scheffler. Not Rom.
- [10:47]
Mike Wilbon
Scheffler. Scheffler. Scheffler.
- [10:48]
Tony Kornheiser
Yep, yep.
- [10:49]
Mike Wilbon
And then he had some A moments, but overall, I don't think if you were sitting with him right now, having a cold one, I don't think he'd give himself an A, anything. He had the moments. But isn't that what a champion is when you are less than yourself and you can still produce at the highest level against a whole field of people? The people who came back and who weren't up to the moment. Rahm is the most noticeable. I know Rahm has been sort of out of it.
- [11:17]
Tony Kornheiser
You know, Shamble made a slight run.
- [11:19]
Mike Wilbon
But you know what?
- [11:19]
Tony Kornheiser
Shamble made a slight run. Matty Fitz made a slight run. They made a slight run.
- [11:24]
Mike Wilbon
Rahm had. Rahm is equal to Scheffler. He's got two majors. They entered when they were nine even at nine under. They were both nine under and two majors apiece. And Rahm shrank from the moment. And Scheffler did not.
- [11:39]
Tony Kornheiser
And Scheffler did not.
- [11:40]
Mike Wilbon
No.
- [11:40]
Tony Kornheiser
You should feel good because last week I said to you, will you take Scheffler, Rory and Justin Thomas against the field? And you said you would. I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have. You won it. Let's take a break. Coming up, what were the biggest takeaways from baseball's rivalry weekend?
- [11:57]
Mike Wilbon
Tony wants me to watch the horsies again. And I'll tell you what I concluded. Oh, my God.
- [12:06]
Tony Kornheiser
Rivalry weekend, very hard to say because of the combination of letters.
- [12:10]
Mike Wilbon
Oh, I watched a lot of it.
- [12:12]
Tony Kornheiser
And then go right into weekend yeah.
- [12:15]
C
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- [14:02]
Tony Kornheiser
Time to get thoughts from the throngs. Let me see what's first. Go to the glasses. Pull out the question did you approve of baseball's first rivalry weekend?
- [14:13]
Mike Wilbon
Very much. You know, I don't need a theme, but very much for me. But I have a horse in the race. I'm fully into the Cubs now. We're in a real baseball time of year. We're not March 30th or any dumb stuff. And the Cubs swept the White Sox. The Cubs are in first place, though, narrowly holding off, of course, the red hot Cardinals. And that's going to put me in a stressful mood all summer. If we can hold position with the Cardinals. So but there are a lot of those, Tony. You know, the Nationals and the Orioles. I got stuck watching the Yankees Mets last night and actually stayed with it. And you have some other things out in California. You have a lot of. A few of them don't work. The, the Red Sox and the Braves don't work for me. I looked up there and saw the logos and I was like, oh, what do we got here? But a lot of them do work. And I don't care about everybody else's. I care about mine, especially as long as the Cubs now have an advantage over the White Sox. 3 After going 74. 74 Even for years, the Cubs now have swept three to take a three game lead over the Sox.
- [15:10]
Tony Kornheiser
Yeah, thank you for that update on the Chicago baseball.
- [15:13]
Mike Wilbon
That's right.
- [15:14]
Tony Kornheiser
I have spent my entire life in two cities, in New York and in Washington, where they have rivalries that matter. The Mets and the Yankees matter. In New York, the Nationals and the Orioles matter.
- [15:28]
Mike Wilbon
Do they?
- [15:29]
Tony Kornheiser
These are geographic rivalries. Well, the Nats just came into the league about 20 years ago, but the proximity of the cities, the 40 miles apart of the cities of Washington and Baltimore makes sense. You have what you have in Chicago, you have in Pennsylvania, you have the Pirates and the Phillies, you have Cincinnati and Cleveland. Missouri has Missouri, you have Kansas City and St. Louis. And these things all matter. I understand that the Angels and the Dodgers, they matter. But you also have, I believe, Arizona and Colorado. And I go, what's that? What is that exactly? What, what is Seattle and San Diego? What is Detroit and Toronto? So while I like the idea of it, it's a gimmick. And sometimes it's like putting a square peg in a round hole. But on balance, I like it.
- [16:14]
Mike Wilbon
The others have to live with it. Collateral damage.
- [16:17]
Tony Kornheiser
How would you describe journalism's win in the Preakness Stakes, Mr. Horsey?
- [16:23]
Mike Wilbon
Look, I've been watching competitive sports since I was 4 years old. I care more about it than I care about anything in my life. And yet sometimes something happens. When you see that bump with journalism, who I was rooting for, you and I both rooted for journalism for one big fat obvious reason. That's how we made a living, forever and ever. But when journalism survives the bump, whether initiating it or receiving it, and then runs this horse down and turns into Secretariat for about eight seconds, I thought it was the most thrilling thing I have seen, one of the most thrilling things I have ever seen in sports. And I don't care about the horses. I had to call you and scream at you. On voicemail to say, tony, is there still a Preakness? If there is, when is it on? I knew nothing. And it's one of the great things I've ever seen.
- [17:18]
Tony Kornheiser
Yeah. So I was in New York City at a high school reunion, and seven of us left where we were to go find a bar at this hour with a lot of TVs to watch this race. There's a bar on 44th Street. I think it's called Virgil's. I'm not sure. And you can't hear anything when you're in there. But I'm watching this race on a thousand televisions with about 200 people. All right. It's sensational. The horse gets bumped, the horse gets sandwiched. The horse escapes, and now he's got to run down the leader. Mike, this is not anything you would know. It's the shortest of the Triple Crown races, so it looks like he only has about 100 yards to make up 50 yards. And, yes, it's accurate to say. And he turns into Secretary.
- [17:57]
Mike Wilbon
Unbelievable.
- [17:57]
Tony Kornheiser
And he runs this other horse down. And it is thrilling. That's another one of your words. I endorse that word. It was absolutely thrilling to watch this in a big crowd, people screaming as they watched it. And I only hope that sovereignty and journalism run in the Belmont in a sort of a winner. Take it as they both run it.
- [18:18]
Mike Wilbon
In the Triple Crown. Change the dates of the races. Give us. Give us the whole summer of this.
- [18:24]
Tony Kornheiser
Separated by a month, not two weeks and three weeks. A month and a month. Enough. FEMALE let's take one last break. Still to come, the Eagles reach a deal with your boy Nick Sirianni.
- [18:34]
Mike Wilbon
Eliannis will reportedly sit down with the Bucs this week. Virgil's is one of my spots. Virgil's has great ribs.
- [18:40]
Tony Kornheiser
Really?
- [18:41]
Mike Wilbon
Yes, it's on 44th. Sports. I've been going to Virgil's for 35 years.
- [18:46]
Tony Kornheiser
Seven people from Hewlett High School.
- [18:48]
Mike Wilbon
How about that?
- [18:49]
Tony Kornheiser
And we walked in there and we went. And it was great. Get in the zone.
- [18:53]
Mike Wilbon
Autozone.
- [18:55]
C
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- [19:17]
Mike Wilbon
Get in the zone.
- [19:18]
C
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- [19:53]
Tony Kornheiser
Happy time people. Happy 68th birthday, Bill Lame Beer the 611 center is best known for his stellar work on the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons with Isaiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Rick Mahorn and Lane Beer at the top of the cast. Those Pistons won two NBA championships and Laimbeer provided toughness, rebounding and a soft touch from distance that was ahead of its time. Laimbeer went on to be a very successful coach in the wnba, bringing home three championships. You know Mike, I always thought it was too easy to paint Laimbeer simply as a villain. Really though he took it well. I think he's one of the most underrated players ever. They would not have won without him in Detroit.
- [20:30]
Mike Wilbon
He is underrated and I also find him today in our advanced age, loathsome. Always did. He wanted to be the villain. He embraced it. You see when Robert Parish knocked him out and Jess Kersey looked at Lame Beer on the ground in a Game seven on the floor in Boston Garden and said, bill, get up. Told you what everybody thought of him outside the Pistons and he was everything you said and lonesome.
- [20:57]
Tony Kornheiser
It's good to see you're mellowing with age.
- [20:59]
Mike Wilbon
You don't hold grudges.
- [21:00]
Tony Kornheiser
Happy anniversary Howe Family on this day 51 years ago, Red Wings legend Gordie Howe teamed up with his sons Mark and Marty to lead the Houston Arrows to a sweep of your Chicago Cougars and the WHA championship, the first of back to back championships in the World Hockey Association. At age 46, Howe won the WHA MVP, an award that was later renamed the Gordie Howe Troops Trophy. Yeah, Hal played with the arrows until 1977 when he and his sons joined the New England Whalers who would later become the NHL's Hartford Whalers when the merger occurred in 1979. How finally retired in 1980 at age 52. The house of the first family of hockey like the Mannings in football, right Mike?
- [21:40]
Mike Wilbon
Oh, there's no question, Tony. It's great being a little, little kid seeing Gordie Howe. I got to see the end of Howe with the Red Wings and the number 9 pat then. To see him play that long and play that well with his sons, amazing. A chapter that's probably not talked about often enough.
- [21:59]
Tony Kornheiser
Happy trails to Windham Clark's driver. Clark dealt with his frustration over a wayward drive on 16 by flinging his driver into a sponsor wall behind the tee box, putting a hole in it. A marshal was holding a flag just a yard away. The driver had broken off from the shaft, so Clark had to finish the round without the club. Other players like Rory McIlroy and Scotty Scheffler were forced to change out their drivers after pre tournament testing ruled that their club faces were too springy from being thinned out by use.
- [22:29]
Mike Wilbon
You know, if you're going to check the drivers, it would seem to me check all of them, not just 50. Check everybody's driver in the field or you just. What are you doing? I mean, how do you decide which 50 to check? That's sort of weird to me.
- [22:42]
Tony Kornheiser
I agree with this 100% because you villainize people if you don't check everybody.
- [22:48]
Mike Wilbon
Right.
- [22:48]
Tony Kornheiser
You have to check everybody. You have to realize that the driver face thins out because they hit the ball time after time after time. People think they're cheating. They're not cheating. No, you know, check everybody. Let's go to the big steroids involved. Caitlin Clark and the Fever trounced Angel sky to Angel Reese and you're a Chicago sky in your season opener. Your reaction?
- [23:08]
Mike Wilbon
The result is incidental. What goes on between those two and the perception and the reaction to them and anything they do that's gonna wind up being, for better or worse, a story for 10 years. The Eagles and Nick Sirianni agreed on a multi year extension. Your thoughts?
- [23:25]
Tony Kornheiser
His record is 48 and 20. You lock him up as long as you can. He's 48 and 20. Yeah. What are you nuts? Chris Haynes reports that Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks will meet later this week. Do you find that significant?
- [23:39]
Mike Wilbon
Are you kidding? It's going to determine the entire summer agenda of the NBA. I mean free agency. Suppose Dallas decides we want Giannis in Milwaukee. He says, well give us Cooper flag the first pick. How about that? Brock Purdy and the Niners agreed on a deal that gets him 181 million guaranteed and a no trade. Is that deserved?
- [24:01]
Tony Kornheiser
Yeah, I think he's been really good. I think injuries have hurt them. He hasn't hurt them. Last one, sophomore number one overall seed, Texas A and M. Bounced by Liberty in the first round. You're surprised aren't you?
- [24:11]
Mike Wilbon
In a word, yes, Very surprised.
- [24:13]
Tony Kornheiser
Yeah. We're out of time. We will try to do better the next time. John and Brenda Gallant, Laura Silverstein. Thank you for watching.
- [24:20]
Mike Wilbon
I'm Mike Wilbon. Same time tomorrow, knuckleheads. You can get the PTI podcast on the ESPN app or Apple Podcasts.
- [24:28]
C
Pti.