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All right, welcome to hoops. Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Saturday everybody. Hope all of you guys are having a great start to your weekend. Well, the 2025, 2026 NBA campaign is finally at its end and the New York Knicks are the champions of the NBA, one of the most unlikely contenders from our field this year. They were kind of all year just hovering in that second tier of contenders. We discussed three throughout the year, what their most likely title path would look like and it would go through San Antonio. It went through San Antonio. They won three consecutive road games in San Antonio to go with something crazy like eight or seven or eight consecutive road wins in the postseason. As the Knicks close out the NBA Finals four games to one and they are hoisting the Larry o' Brien trophy as we speak. We're going to be getting an update on Finals MVP at some point shortly, but you guys all know who that's going to be. We're going to talk about this game very briefly. I'm not going to focus too much on the game itself outside of Jalen Brunson. We're going to talk about this Knicks team and what this year was like for them. We'll talk a little bit about the spurs at the tail end of the show as they had a catastrophic performance on several levels in a game that they still should have won even under those circumstances. And that will be what they'll be, they'll be kicking themselves about all summer. A 16 point lead blown in this one. Double digit lead blown. Double digit leads blown in every game. A 20 point lead with nine and a half minutes left in game four. They're gonna have plenty to think about over the course of the summer. We'll talk a little bit of spurs at the tail end of the show and then we're gonna take questions from the chat. So any of you guys, if you have questions about anything, drop them in the chat. We'll get to them when we're done breaking things down. You guys know the joke before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. We have a goal to get to 150,000 subs here before things slow down after Summer league. So if you guys don't mind taking a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button. That helps us a lot. If you're already subscribed, subscribe like this video. Sign up for post notifications. It helps us a lot. All right, let's talk some basketball. We're going to find out very shortly here that Jalen Brunson won Finals mvp, and he absolutely deserved it. I thought things were kind of teetering a little bit during that game three, game four phase where, like, you could make a case for og, you can make a case for Cat, you can make a case for Jalen. I talked after game four that, like, you know, it turned into this big debate, like, oh, does advantage creation matter? Is this something that we should talk about when or consider when we're talking about Finals mvp? My take on that is yet, yes, it matters. It matters when you're playing against a defense like that, if you're the guy who can break it down. And that was abundantly clear with the way that he ran the show down the stretch of game four yet. Brutal, brutal first three games of the series. But even in his brutal first three games of the series, he had multiple clutch shots that helped close out two of those games. Just little bits of playmaking and shot making that. That helped close the deal. In games that he otherwise struggled. These last two games, though, just, I should say, these last three halves, these last three halves from Jalen Brunson, just absolute masterpiece. Basketball performances. The stat of the night, to me is that on a night when the New York Knicks managed just 94 points, when the San Antonio spurs managed just 90 points, in a game that was so ugly, these are some of the shooting performances for you. OG Anunoby, 3 for 11. Victor Wembanyama, 7 for 19. Darren Fox, 3 for 15. Stefan Castle, 1 for 10. On a night when nobody could score the basketball. Jalen Brunson had 45. He had 45 going against the defense that has downright strangled the life out of many a great player in this postseason run, including the player many thought was the best player in the world coming in, Shake Hill. Just Alexander. You know, we talk a lot in the postseason about how repetitive things can be, and I've talked about this with respect to a guy like James Harden. Sometimes early in series, he'll have some success, and then as things progress, I'm talking more about him in his prime. But as the series progresses, guys start to sit on his moves. Guys start to understand the cadence, and his lack of variety shows through. And then what ends up happening is late in series, he can't get his game off. What Jalen Brunson demonstrated in this series was the opposite. As the series progressed, he solved San Antonio's defense. He figured out, if I get Julian Champagne on me, I can turn the corner whenever I want. I've got to get these shots up in the Gaps like offensive rebound, kick out threes, transition, pull up threes. Really hunted the transition pull up three tonight, knowing against that defense it's one of the best shots he can get, but a shot he can make. We know Jalen Brunson can take and make pull up transition threes. It's a shot that's part of his variety. Oh, Steph Castle's pressuring me. If I just go fast right here, just really quickly and beat him, I'll find a little gap for a floater. One of the biggest shots of the night. Toast Steph Castle off the dribble and ball pressure gets in the lane for the little floater. Jalen Brunson's variety, the foul grifting he did in the second half tonight, his multifaceted offensive attack allowed him to generate 45 points against the best defense in the NBA in a closeout game where nobody could score. It's the most obvious Finals mvp. There you go. Jackson just messaged me. Jalen Brunson is officially your Finals mvp. Very deservingly so. Whether it was the clutch shots at the end of game one, the little clutch step back one legged shot that he hit in game two, whether it's his masterful performance down the stretch of game four, including that massive pull up three over Victor Wembanyama and the driving floater that he hit on Steph Castle to tonight, once again scoring 45 when the rest of his team managed just 49 points. I think like when you juxtapose it, we literally talked about this before the series. Jalen Brunson's not better than Shay Gis Alexander. I'm not doing player rankings tonight, but I spoiler alert. Jalen's not going to be number one on my list. But what I did say before the series was that Jalen's variety would give him a better chance to score against the spurs than shaded. And it struggled. He struggled early. A lot of tough contested pull up mid range jump shots in the early part of the series. Not as much of the transition attack, not as many of the threes. He was able to find every little nook and cranny of the spurs defense to get his game off in the two biggest games of the series. And he was the difference frankly there. When you look at how close this series was, how, how often San Antonio felt like they were in complete control and there's a lot of Knicks who deserve credit and we're going to talk about it. You know, OG did have a massive impact once again in this game and throughout the entire series. Carl Anthony Towns had a brutal night tonight, but you'd be lying to yourself if you didn't acknowledge his defensive impact on Victor Wembanyama. The way he spaced the floor for like a driving layup for Brunson and crunch time tonight. Big plays he made throughout all the games. There's there. We're going to talk about all the Knicks, all the Knicks deserve credit. But the difference in this series ultimately was that when both teams really brought the requisite force on defense, everybody on the floor struggled. Every spurs guard, Victor Wembanyama, every Knicks player, Jaylen Brunson was the one guy that was like, in this setting where no one can do on offense, I can get my game off. And that ultimately was the difference. Just an unbelievable performance from him. Kind of reminded me a little bit of, of Steph Curry in the Olympics, if you guys remember where, like he just couldn't get anything going for the first several games and then just in the semifinal in the final. He's just absolutely unbelievable. And like, it's such a unique skill set. There's not really a player like him in the league that brings the combination. One of the things that really stood out to me in tonight's game was just how well he's able to get separation from apex defenders with like little tricks, hesitation moves, stop start quickness, little bits of understanding angles. He had a driving layup on Victor late in the game where he hit like two or three different hesitation moves. Just enough to get Victor to kind of open up his body. Then he drives into that gap, Then he hesitates again, bump swimy to create the space for him to get inside for the layup. You have to think for a guy like him. Like when you're watching other players around the league, like just take like a guard that has apex athletic traits. Take a guy like Anthony Edwards. There's a certain unguardability to ant too, but it stems from his supreme physical gifts. If I take this step back jump shot, I can get so much lift and so much separation. Just how strong my legs are and how big I am for the position that I can just shoot over the top of you, right? If you play up on the shot and I get ahead of steam, I'm a freight train going downhill. When you're dealing with a guy like Jalen Brunson, that's not something he has access to. He can't be afraid, train downhill. He can't get tons of separation off of a simple step back dribble. This is a guy that had to immaculately craft a game that had so many moves in so many counters, a creativity in terms of adjusting his release point, adjusting his footwork, adjusting every little detail of every little shot attempt so that he could specifically craft every single possession to what that possession called for. As a player with his physical tools, it's just a It was an incredibly fascinating couple of games to watch. An incredibly fascinating playoff run from Jalen Brunson, a deserving Finals mvp. We'll see where I rank him in the player rankings this summer, but I can tell you right now he's gonna be no lower than number six and he has a strong case to be considered one of those top in that same tier with those top five that we all consider Giannis Luca, Shay Wemby and Nicole Jokic. Unbelievable stuff from Jalen Brunson. Just really quickly, just shouting out some Knicks before we talk a little bit about the spurs and then we'll get into our mailbag. This Every time you see a champion come together and finish the job of getting 16 wins and hoisting the trophy, it always requires numerous contributions. It requires multiple players to reach heights that they haven't reached in the past. It requires key contributions in big games, even from lower level players. How big was Landry Shamit in earlier rounds? Tough series for him. He was giving up size to all these spurs guards. He got attacked a lot. His jump shot left him a little bit. Not. Not Landry Shame it's best series. But he was absolutely insanely good through the first three rounds. At one point, what did he make? 23 out of 33 threes. Countless big shots, important shots, momentum shots. That's just like. That's the kind of thing that you see in a championship run. You see a guy who makes huge plays out of a role that you wouldn't expect coming into the postseason. Run Mitchell Robinson's defense on Victor Wembanyama all series at various points in higher usage or higher minutes because of the Carl Anthony Towns foul trouble gets two big stops on Victor women. Yama at the end of game two tonight just buries Victor Weminyama under the rim for an offensive rebound. Mitchell Robinson some series less effective, some series more effective, some nights less effective, some nights more effective. Made massive plays along the way for this team to win the title. OG Anunoby like we're talking about a guy that I have said as a role player has value that eclipses many of the stars in the NBA. Yes, Jalen Brunson created a lot of advantages that got him Open looks. How many like tough contested threes did he hit in this series? His defense at the rim, the transition blocks, including one that was one of the biggest plays in NBA history on Deer and Fox. The times that Jalen Brunson looked for a bailout and threw the ball to OG with like four or five seconds on the shot clock and he was able to just put the ball on the floor, bump somebody off with one of his big ass shoulders and hit a little 15 footer in the lane. The individual defense on Deer and Fox at the end of game four, like that, that's like here's the thing. He rightfully did not get Finals mvp, but like it was kind of close before tonight. And that is legitimately because of just how valuable he was through those first four games. Carl Anthony Towns, forget about anything else. The job he did individually defensively on Victor we Minyama essentially rendering him useless as an isolation player. How do you, how do you quantify that? How do you put like a value, a significant, like a statistical marker of value on what Carl Anthony Towns was able to do? Just simply guarding Victor Wemanyama one on one, rendering him a player that could just screen and roll to the basket or take threes. That was basically all Victor could do in this series offensively outside of game three. That was the one game where the Knicks didn't bring the requisite defensive force and they lost Victor on the roll a bunch. But Victor was utterly useless as a one on one player in the series because of Carl Anthony Towns. And that doesn't even get into his offensive rebounding which was pivotal throughout the series. His spacing the floor, just the, the way that he alters the geometry of the floor. There were multiple layups that Jalen Brunson got in the final two games of the series that Shea goes. Alexander won again in the last round in large part because of the way that Karl Anthony Towns could force Victor Wembanyama to have to make more decisions in space defensively again. He had. He was the Finals MVP favorite for me after three games. That's how impactful Carl Anthony Towns was. I thought Josh Hart was fantastic tonight. Obviously at the brutal end of game four, hit massive threes, including this big one off the dribble there at the end of the third quarter. That was a big shot that cut into the lead. His three more offensive rebounds tonight, he was plus 15 and 39 minutes at 13 points and 11 rebounds. Big ass, big, big performance for from Josh Hart to bounce back from his rough one in game four. Mikhail Bridges. I thought he was great tonight. He had a rough game in game four. I thought he was great tonight. And obviously McHale, at various points in the platform, had a rough start to the Atlanta series, but he was amazing in the middle two rounds. Just everyone contributed, obviously Mike Brown, you know, there's a lot of these kind of coaches. I remember this. You know, as someone who roots for the Lakers, I remember this with Frank vogel in. In 2020, we have this belief, for whatever reason, that the coach is, like, ultimately responsible for how the team plays. And I do think that the coach deserves a good amount of responsibility for the team's culture. But I was really fascinated by the quote from Mike Brown at the end of game two, I believe. I think it was game two when he talked about how, like, it's not usually like this in the NBA. When he was talking about how locked in his team is, how they never quit, their competitiveness, their belief, the culture, all of the wonderful things you've been hearing about the Knicks locker room in this playoff run, he was talking about how it's like, it ain't always like this in the NBA. Basically saying, like, he's been in locker rooms where dudes have tuned him out. People don't listen. Where you come away thinking, is he a bad coach? Hell, I mean, the. It didn't exactly end well for him in Sacramento. And, you know, similarly, Frank Vogel is a guy that doesn't even have a job as a head coach in the NBA right now. And, you know, lost the Lakers locker room in the years after the title. But in that year when everyone bought in and believed in him, he was awesome at his job. And it's kind of a casual reminder that, like, when we're talking about coaches in the NBA, there's a. There's a fine line between this guy can't coach or this guy's in a locker room or in a situation where it. It's not coalescing. The guys aren't really into it. They're tuning him out. There are good. It was a reminder to me that there are good coaches in the NBA that can have success if they're in the right type of locker room. And Mike Brown caught fire with these guys, made some tweaks to the way they played on offense, dug deeper into his bench, got more out of this group defensively than a legendary defensive coach in Tom Thibodeau. And now he's stamped. Now he's stamped as a championship coach in the NBA. And frankly, I thought he did an incredible job. And I thought he out coached Mitch Johnson, Mitch Johnson in this series, but man, unbelievable stuff. And this, I think this is an important win. Before we talk Spurs, I think this is an important win for the NBA and for NBA fans. And what I mean by that is so many years we watch and it's like, oh, the Thunder, top tier contender, they dominate all, all year. They kick everyone's butt in the playoffs or I mean obviously they, they struggled a little bit last year, but they end up hoisting the trophy. 2024 Boston, best team in the league all year, kick everyone's butt, they end up hoisting the trophy. Right? You go back, you have these years where, you know, the team that we think is the best team ends up just kind of kicking everybody's butt. And the Knicks, they were a 53 win team. They don't have a player that anybody considered to be a top tier superstar in the league. Coming into the season, they rightfully and fairly were criticized as a flawed build with two players in the starting lineup that can't guard. And they overcame all of that. Their talent, they played better than the sum of their parts. Their star player and Jalen Brunson played like a top tier superstar. They were able to defend at an extremely high level and frankly got great defensive contributions from the two guys that were considered to be the weak links defensively. And now they're hoisting the trophy and I think it's good because when we go through the NBA season and it's like, okay, who are our top tier contenders? All right, well this year it's OKC in San Antonio and you know, Denver or whoever it is that we think it is. Okay, who are our second tier contenders? These are the teams that like have a puncher's chance, but they need some things to go right. I think it's important for the, for the league to have belief and for the, for us to have 7, 8, 9, 10 teams like really going for it every year. And the Knicks were a team that just really went for it. They ran it back with a group of guys. They made an all in trade last summer, two summers ago for Carl Anthony Towns and Mikhail Bridges. They placed a big bet on Jalen Brunson being good enough and frankly, throughout most of the season it looked like they were a long shot and they were able to get it done. I, I just want to congratulate Knicks fans again. We'll talk a little bit more when we get into the, to the chat, but I'm extremely happy for you guys. I know that when we were doing Playback last year, I got to meet several of you and I'm thinking about you guys tonight. I just know that you guys are having the time of your life. There's no feeling in sports quite like having your team hoist the trophy and you guys deserve to celebrate tonight. I'm very happy for you. On the spurs front, Today's show is brought to you by presenting sponsor Hard Rock bet, Florida's sportsbook. The NBA Finals are here, the lights are brighter, the pressure is higher, and every possession can define a legacy. Will New York finally end a 53 year drought and bring a title to the Big Apple? Or will San Antonio's young superstar tip off the next great dynasty run? However you see it playing out, head over to Hard Rock Bet and turn your picks into a payday. Because once the final buzzer sounds, that's it for hoops until next season. So shoot your shot while you can and same game parlays are the best way to get in on the action. 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Jason Jackson
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I don't want to dig too much into an obituary for the spurs tonight. We'll talk more about that in our Monday show when we do more of kind of like an autopsy on the NBA finals, but just 30,000ft. Couple of things Dear and Fox had one of the worst playoff series from a lead guard that I can ever remember, and it somehow got worse as things went along. 3 for 15 tonight, somehow managed just 7 points on 15 shot attempts. To put it very simply, the spurs are probably champions if Dear and Fox plays to just his normal level. That's how close these games were. That's frankly, it was dear mistakes at the end of game two or at the end of game one and at the end of game four that cost them a couple of games in this series. It's as dark as it gets with Deer. Here's what I'll say, though. I always talk about this on the show. The beautiful thing about basketball is there's always time to make another play, right? If you have a bad game in the regular season for three quarters, you can make a play in the fourth quarter, help your team get a win. You have a bad game overall and you lose, you have a chance two nights later, maybe even one night later, to make a play and help your team win. You find yourself down in a playoff series and you play like shit. You have a chance to play again and you have a chance to prove everyone wrong and to flip the script on how things went. Dear Fox reached the finish line of this season and in the biggest game he was awful again. We would all be insane to think that the spurs aren't going to be in some big playoff games again next year. And I do think de' Aaron's capable of playing a hell of a lot better than he did. He obviously was banged up by the ankle injury. I don't think he's anywhere near as explosive as he was in Sacramento, but he certainly is a lot more explosive than he showed over the course of the last two rounds. I think de' Aaron's gonna have an opportunity next year to to set things straight. And if he plays better, this spurs team is really, really tough to beat. And so for all the people like, again, he deserves all the criticism. Just put it very simply, they win the title. If Dear and Fox averages 18 points per game on 57% true shooting, 55% true shooting, they win the title. That's how close these games were. And every one of them was in his hands. Late again tonight. Wide Open left corner. 3 miss. Wide open, little mid range, pull up. Missed. But he'll live to fight another day. And frankly, like, for all the talk about the contract there, there ain't trading Darren Fox this summer. How does Dylan Harper fit into this? And we'll talk about him in a second. I think he's going to start next to him. I think they're going to start three guards. De' Aon's a part of this team and he's going to be for at least another year or two. He's going to be a guy who's heavily featured in the offense the next time the spurs find themselves in a big playoff game. So as bad as this was, he will have a chance to redeem himself. But call it what it is, he was the difference between winning and losing in this series for the Spurs. Steph Castle, like when I'm dealing with the younger guards like Steph, Steph can't shoot. That's obviously the thing he's got to work on this summer. That's really the thing for the spurs in general. Every single one of these spurs guards, like shot making was the difference. Shot making was the difference in this series. The ability of the guards to knock down jump shots off the dribble and off the catch compared to New York and their perimeter players was the difference between winning and losing in this series. They need to spend all damn summer long working on those jump shots, especially off the catch, because those are the kinds that they're getting in in the style of offense that they play. Steph Castle in particular, too much offhand in his shot. He's basically shooting with two hands. That makes him extremely streaky. That's something that he's got to rectify over the course of the next few off seasons. When it comes to Dylan and Dylan was incredible. When it comes to Dylan and Stephen, we're talking about three guys that are too young to expect to be rock solid in this sort of situation. Dear Ends the guy that's got to be able to rise to the occasion when they get to the spot next year. I expect Dear End to have A big summer. I expect Dieren to come back next year and be considerably better than he was on the Victor Webman Yama front. I'm extremely like, if there's a silver lining. I thought the Knicks were going to win the series anyway. The nice thing about things ending tonight, even though I always want more NBA basketball, I'm glad we don't have to have this conversation about the missed flagrant foul call. I think it was absurd. Some of the stuff I saw going around on Twitter. Did he commit a flagrant foul on that play? Yeah, but it was a missed call. Brunson took a contested transition three and fell down. And Brunson fell down like 14 times tonight. So it was just a missed call. I don't think it was a conspiracy and frankly, I thought it was hilarious because I thought the Knicks got a better whistle tonight. Missed calls are part of the game. One of the first possessions of the game, OG Anunoby blatantly double dribbled like blatantly put the two hands on the ball and then drove by Victor Wemanyama and drew foul. Missed calls happen sometimes. Missed flagrant calls happen. Wemby picked up an elbow flagrant that was inadvertent in game four. Cat did the exact same thing in game four. Elbowed Wemby in the face. Got away with it. Cause it was a missed call. Cause missed calls are parts are a part of basketball games. I think it would have been absurd for the league to retroactively go back and suspend Wemby so that we could watch the spurs get their ass beat in Madison Square Garden in game six without Victor. And I thought it was incredibly lame that some people were rooting for that. And it's not the same as the Draymond situation. In the Draymond situation, you could literally see him deliberately try to punch LeBron in the balls. Not the same as Victor closing out on a transition. Pull up three. And I, I was, frankly, I thought it was shameful some of the stuff I saw going around Twitter. And the Knicks got a better whistle. Jalen Brunson Took like 15 free throw attempts in this game. Got every 50, 50 calling grift call in the second half of this game. The Knicks in large part benefited from the whistle in this game, just like the spurs benefited from the whistle in earlier games of the series. I just think talking about the officiating is completely lame. And thank God I don't have to listen to all of you bitch and moan because Victor didn't get suspended for game six. That's All I'll say about the officiating, talking about this series from Victor Cat, rendering him useless as a one on one player is a real problem. Even in the OKC series, going against J. Will and against Isaiah Hartenstein, he was able to get more of his one on one game off. That is the thing that I think was most glaring, the conditioning. I don't really blame him for that. I blame the organization. You can't play him 29 minutes per game post All Star break. If you want to arrest him for the first 2/3 of the year, sure, whatever. Give him extra nights off, keep his minutes down. Do whatever you need to do to get his body to survive. You need to ramp him up to 38, 40 minutes a game over the last month, month and a half of the season. Got to prep him for the postseason. He clearly got gassed out at the end of every game. And every time you had to lean on Cornette, the team fell apart once again in this series. They were. I. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but they were significantly positive when Victor was on the floor and significantly negative when he was off the floor. That's on the team. The team's got to find a way to get him conditioned properly. The center of gravity battles. So for instance, like him getting shoved under the rim by Mitchell Robinson, that's never not going to happen. He's got too high of a center of gravity. People are going to be able to push him around. That's just kind of how it goes. That's a team thing there. Right. Like, Victor can battle Mitch better there, but like Steph Castle's got to help come down with that rebound. Victor's going to get pushed around by some bigger, stronger centers the rest of his career. If he bulked up, I think it would be the worst thing he could do because his center of gravity would still be high, he'd still get pushed around and he would just be slower. Should he put on a little bit of muscle? Sure. But the best thing Wemby has going for him is how rangy he is. That is the type of basketball player he's going to be. So developmentally for him, as you continually saw against Cat, he was able to get to a little pull up 15 footers. Now do I think he could refine that a little bit in terms of adding more of a triple threat game so it's a little bit more static, making it so that he has some more quick rhythm dribble moves so that he's A little more balanced on some of those shots because on some of them he's like frankly fading pretty heavily. Yeah, there's some like technical stuff he can, he can figure out, but there is a jump shooting element to him improving, that needs to improve and there is a, a ball handling element. Victor is more or less a perimeter player. I don't ever see him being a guy who's going to be thriving in the post. I don't ever see him being a guy who's going to be bullying his way to the basket. I just don't see it in his future. He is a perimeter player that can also function as a high level role man who will get occasional deep duck ins when the team manufactures that position for him, whether it's in ball screens, whether it's through other action. You're going to have to get him deep post position through, through ingenuity. He's not going to be able to just bully his way down there ever at any point in his career. Victor is kind of a unicorn. He is this weird Kevin Durant mixed with Anthony Davis hybrid right. And Anthony Davis added the muscle mass for him to be able to bully ball a little bit. But one, he had a lower center of gravity because he wasn't that tall. And when he did, he became a worse player overall. He couldn't shoot, he was slow off of his first step and he wasn't as good defensively as when he, as he was when he was younger. So like for me with Victor it's the jumper's got to get polished. You got to add a more simple mid range face up game so that you're not dealing with the really difficult fadeaways and it's more of like a quick jab and rise up or a quick one dribble pull up or a jab and go left and pull up. Where you're getting more separation on simpler moves where you don't have to fade away as much. The staff has to come up with more ingenuity in the offense to get him deeper post position and then he's got to be able to do a little bit better when he's dribbling in traffic. He had turnover issues throughout this entire matchup. I don't know. I'm not going to make an announcement tonight about who I think the best player in the world is. That's a conversation for the summer and we'll dive into it. Eileen Wemby right now, but I'm not 100% sure I really want to dive back into it. This summer. The truth of the matter is, is that matchups play a role for every one of these players at the top of the league. And I don't think there's really any separation between the top five guys, any of them. Even Giannis, when he's healthy. Like, you bet your ass, if Giannis ends up a Boston Celtic, you're going to be asking whether or not he's the best player in the world right around mid November. Okay? Like, these guys are all really fucking good. And so is Victor. He's firmly in that group. He's in pole position for me right now before we go into our player rankings, but I'll decide when we get to the summer. Overwhelmingly, I was incredibly impressed by him in this postseason run. I thought, like, for all of the focusing on his flaws, and they were many, we discussed them. I thought that his overall impact somehow got glossed over. Still, when I saw him being discussed around the NBA world, the dude just being on the floor and what he did defensively and what he did offensively with his gravity around the basket, when he would roll, and just in general when he had the basketball made it so that when he was on the floor, the spurs won. They just did. I, I'll pull up the plus minus numbers when we're going through the chat, but like, the spurs kicked ass when Victor was out there. Even in the Knicks series, for the most part, they were positive when he was out on and negative when he was off. Victor, this is like an A plus plus plus plus playoff run for a 22 year old. I, I, I honestly, like, think about it. Before this playoff run started, when we were thinking, what will Victor's first playoff run be like? If I broke it down for you, if I told you about game three against Minnesota, if I told you about game one against okc, if I told you about his averages, if I told you about the on, off, if I told you that they would be in close games every single game in the NBA Finals, you'd, you would be like, oh man, Wemby exceeded expectations and he did. I made this reference the other day. To me, if you think about like time trials in the Olympics or anywhere else, whereas you cross checkpoints, you either see a little green number for them being ahead of pace or a little red number for the or for them being behind pace. To me, Victor Weman Yama is ahead of pace for the goat conversation. He's got a little green number there. Not by much, doesn't mean he is the goat. But you're Lying to yourself if you don't think he's ahead of schedule. He just is. And I know people like to make fun of his personality. For me, I'm pro NBA players having a ton of personality. This dude's one of the most savage competitors in the league. He's going to be in the gym all summer and he's going to come back next year on a wrecking ball tour. God willing, he stays healthy. I was incredibly impressed by him in this postseason run. Really quickly on Dylan Harper and then we'll get into our chat. He's very clearly the second best player on the team. He has a combination of power and explosiveness that is extremely rare at the guard position. When you look around at the guards that we have in the league, you know, it's really like him and Ant that bring the combination of like legitimate on ground power but also the vertical pop and the explosiveness athletically, like he was plenty high enough on that lefty layup that should have tied the game. He just kind of short armed it. The jump shot is going to come around. I mean, he shot the ball well tonight. He's going to continue to improve as a jump shooter. He has a shiftiness and an understanding of angles that even Ant doesn't have. He's a better finisher at the rim than just about any guard I've ever seen at this phase in his development. That dude's a freaking star. And talk about a plus plus plus plus plus playoff runs for a rookie, it doesn't get any better unless you're talking about Magic freaking Johnson. For a guy walking into the NBA at the guard position in playing as well as he did in a winning context for a team that was this close to winning the title. And I was just incredibly impressed by him. We'll talk more spurs when we do our kind of like autopsy on the season on Monday. I did want to give you guys a chance to get into our chat, so let's bring Jackson up. Let's take some questions. I'm excited to announce our partnership with Sarah V. Hydrate your skin up to 10 layers deep from a.m. to p.m. with CeraVe facial moisturizing lotion. 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Jackson (Co-host)
Let's do it. We obviously have a ton of questions tonight, a ton of super chats. We cannot get to all of them. Thank you guys so much. This is our last live stream of the sea of the season. It has been a lot of fun. Please do us a favor like the video. Okay? We are starting with a super chat from the Knicks Homie Kalyn. He said your coverage has been phenomenal. As usual, I'm at a loss for words in the best way possible. June 13, 2026 is a night I'll never forget. And thank you all for being a small part of it. I'm gonna go get wasted.
Jason Jackson
Congratulations, Kaylin. You were one of the people that I was thinking about when I was thinking about Knicks fans. You went through some pretty hard times last year. Like, what would it be like about 54 weeks ago, 55 weeks ago? You had a, a pretty rough week there at the tail end of the Indiana Pacer series. And that's the life of a sports fan in a nutshell. The one thing I, I think is fun for you especially is you literally experienced what was. It was a, a second round loss, then a conference finals loss and then a finals win. So you literally, quite literally climbed the ladder there as a fan. Thank you for the kind words about the coverage. We'll talk when we're done with the chat. I'll, I'll kind of give a brief synopsis on the season and thank you guys. But Kaylin, I'm really happy for you, buddy. I hope you have a fun night. Stay safe, but let loose man. Tie one on. Have a good time.
Jackson (Co-host)
We got a handful of questions about some sort of legacy. All time rank questions about Jalen Brunson and current rank in the league. Questions about Jalen Brunson. Super Chat from the uno, as well as a handful of other people. Does this performance make Jalen Brunson? Does this performance and winning a title obviously make Jalen BRUNSON A top 10 point guard of all time? He has surpassed Luca hands down in terms of greatness. Maybe not in terms of being, quote, unquote, better, but in terms of greatness. Does this make him the third best small guard ever? Does this put him ahead of other modern guards such as Dame, Westbrook, CP3 Harden, guys like that? A lot of questions just generally about Luka, why he should be top five. You know, a lot of Jalen Brunson centric legacy questions.
Jason Jackson
God, that's. That's really interesting. Jalen is like a super unique player in the sense that we're talking about a player that doesn't really have any sort of MVP consideration. Like, he's never even come close to winning an mvp, never been first team all NBA, never had, like, an iconic start to finish season. But I do think that when we're talking about, like, playoff performers, he's definitively been one of the very best playoff players in the NBA over the last, what, three, four years now. And I mean, even before he went to the Knicks, he had that huge win against Utah while Luka Doncic was dealing with that calf injury. Jalen's legacy is complicated because it's kind of unprecedented. We've never really had a player like this that is definitively beneath the top tier before the postseason, but is, like, definitively in the top tier in the postseason. I mean, he's kind of like the Jimmy Butler of guards in. In that sense. But even with Jimmy, like, I felt like Jimmy had really big games, but he never had, like, the numbers for entire postseason runs the way that Jalen Brunson did. And like, Jalen is just like, quite simply one of the most reliable playoff scorers in the league, and quite simply the, like, the most clutch player in the NBA. And so he kind of occupies a very unique space. Questions about, like, where he ranks all time amongst guards, where he ranks all time like that. That, in general is hard for me right now on the spot. That's a conversation for the summer, I will say. I don't think you can possibly rank him lower than 6. Arguing him over Giannis or over Luca or over Shea or over Jokic or over Wemby is. It's complicated. It's a very difficult case to make, especially over two good games, because he was bad for the first three games of the Finals. But I don't Think you could possibly argue a Tatum over him, a Jalen Brown over him, a Donovan Mitchell over him, a LeBron James over him? I don't even think you can argue Steph over him right now.
Jackson (Co-host)
Yeah, Steph ran to the Edwards. I still say no.
Jason Jackson
Yeah. So, like, I think he is, at worst, he's probably the easiest player for me to rank this summer. He's number six. He's the best player off of that top five. And he's either in that group or like in his own tier because he's clearly better than the guys below him. And also when you're just talking about best offensive engines in the NBA, he just simply is one of the top three or four offensive engines in the entire NBA. Like, because he's a better offensive player than Giannis and he's a better offensive player than Wemby. And that to a certain extent, like, automatically vaults him up to like, at worst, the fourth best offensive engine in the entire NBA, depending on how you rank Shea and like Shay Luca in, in Nicole Jokic. So like, it's, it's such an interesting kind of space that he occupies because it's super unique. I will say though, like, it feels different for me than what Jalen Brown won the mvp. And what I mean by that is like, when Jalen Brown won the mvp, it was this weird season where like the Celtics were this incredible team. I remember the whole thing was like they had six starters, six dudes that could all fetch over $30 million on the open market. And Tatum kind of had this cold shooting run, but like, he was still profoundly impactful defensively. Jalen Brown made a lot of big plays and was their most reliable score. But it wasn't like he was like off the charts good in that respect. To me, this kind of reminds me more of like Dirk in 2011. And what I mean by that is like, and Dirk is even. Not even a great comp because Dirk was a, was a first team all NBA MVP candidate, had an mvp.
Jackson (Co-host)
But yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Jackson
Brunson is like. But like it. To me, it's one of those ones where like, I think we'll tell this story years from now in a cool way. Like, yeah, if Jackson, if you and I are talking hoops, 15, 20 years from now, we're gonna be like, remember that year Jalen Brunson fucking went nuts and carried the Knicks to a championship and dropped 45 in a closeout game in San Antonio?
Jackson (Co-host)
It feels a little Kawhi Leonard Raptors to me. They obviously have very different careers and Kawhi Leonard not being an MVP ever. Winning an probably has more to do with injuries than it does for a guy like Jalen Brunson, but similar in the sense that it's like, when we look back, we're going to be like, man, they had a really good team. That and OG Anunobi on both teams. They had a really, really well rounded roster, really, really smart coach, and a superstar who was able to just backpack them in all of the biggest possible moments. He was not the most efficient in the finals, was not the most efficient, in Kawhi's case, in the conference finals either. But just every big play, every big moment, he was just there and he was willing to take all the big shots, and he made just, just enough of them to get it done. And it feels like probably, I mean, who knows, maybe the Knicks win, win another one, but, like, if this is the only one they win, it's like they only got one. But what, what a run for that guy and for that whole team.
Jason Jackson
And it was a special one. It was a really, really special one. I mean, frankly, like, like we talked about, like, all the guys playing above their pay grade, so to speak, and how that's kind of a natural part of a championship run. I mean, I'll pull up the numbers when we do the, the, the autopsy on the season, but, like, the sheer number of clutch shots that Jalen Brunson, unbelievable. Like, very simply, the team has a construct that gets them to the final five minutes, and then Brunson brings him home, and it's like over and over and over again.
Jackson (Co-host)
It's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing stuff. And this next question, we got a super chat from Edgar. He said, what do you think about Brunson winning a championship before Luka Doncic? Less about sort of like where they rank amongst each other, but it's really fascinating to think about them being separated off the Mavericks from each other. Luca stays on the Mavericks for a couple more years, makes the Finals, doesn't win. Brunson goes to New York. Now, Luke is not a maverick, but Brunson wins a title. It's just a crazy situation. The Mavericks had both those guys, and now they have neither. And Brunson's the one who won the Finals. Who won the Finals first?
Jason Jackson
I know that all of it is insane. The Mav is not having either of them crazy, but also, like, not having anything to show for it. Like. Like that you have a shitty Anthony Davis trade to Washington on the tail end of all of this. It's like, you got Max Christie in a couple of picks, but, like, the God maps fans have had it rough, but even. It's even crazier that. That Jalen ended up getting it done. You know, here's the thing. Remember what I was talking about in the show about, like, how coaches kind of have to find themselves in the right situation for their skills to shine?
Jackson (Co-host)
Yeah.
Jason Jackson
Like, Mike. Mike has a gift for defensive accountability, and from his days with the warriors, he's always been a proponent. Proponent of, like, ball movement and player movement and spacing and that kind of stuff. But, like, it doesn't matter if it doesn't resonate with your team, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't shine through. I think that Jalen Brunson deserves a boatload of credit. I'm not trying to take any credit away from him, but, like, I do think that if Luca Doncic found himself in a similar situation where he was with a good. Like, there. There are some differences, by the way. Like, Luca hasn't shown a willingness to work off ball the way that Jalen Brunson has. In this postseason run, Jalen Brunson has had a certain amount of, like, emphasis on, like, okay, I'm gonna be fast on my feet so I can hedge and recover and protect myself from ISO situations and things like that. There are certain differences, but I also think Luke is just a better offensive player than Jalen Brunson. So, like, the. It's. It's complicated, but the point is, is, like, ultimately, this is a team sport, and I do think that, you know, like. Like, Jalen Brunson has this part of his story where it all came together and his skills were able to shine on the biggest stage, and he was able to get the job done. But I'm not going to use that to be like, well, Luca can't because of xyz. Like, I just. Frankly, like, I think Luca can. I just think he needs to be in the right situation, and, like, all these things. Like, all these things need to go a certain way. Like, I. I've been saying for months now, like, I. I think the Knicks need to catch the Spurs. I think the Knicks need to catch the Spurs. They caught the spurs, you know, and, like, there's a version of the. There's a version of the. Of the. The Dallas Mavericks that faces a different team out of the east and wins the title.
Jackson (Co-host)
Right, Right. Like, one of the things that we've talked about on this show a handful of times now in this playoff run is how In a post LeBron Steph Curry era, it's, it's less about just one singular. Not that those teams were one singular amazing player, but it's less about if you have the best guy or the second best guy. You just. That maybe is enough to. Well with. With a decent roster around it to get you to over the top. It's more like you need all of these things to sort of go right all at the right time. Like if Giannis doesn't have Drew Holiday prime Chris middle like Chris Middleton, Brooke Lopez learns how to shoot threes. Like everything kind of lines up for him perfectly. When Jokic has a healthy Aaron Gordon and a healthy Jamal Murray, then it kind of lines up perfectly. It's like it, it requires a lot in this era and I don't think that's like a shot at anybody. It's just sort of the reality. But it's really, it's really interesting because like, there's some people who are like, oh, what is Luca done since losing Jalen Brunson? And it's like, oh, well, he's been first team all NBA. He's been a perennial MVP candidate. Like he's made it to the Finals actually. It's not like he hasn't done anything. He just. And it's, it's, it takes such a perfect confluence of things. It seems as though over the last, whatever it's been eight seasons since we've had a repeat champion to, to actually get over the top. It's a really, really interesting era of basketball.
Jason Jackson
Yeah, every year we do a, like a. Five big takeaways from the season, like lessons learned. And yeah, every single year I come away with the same one of the sim like similar kind of takeaways that I always have is like you need a bunch of things to go right. You need to have a certain amount of talent, but you also need to have them all playing well. Like, I mean like if dear and Fox has an awesome playoff of run next year and they win the title.
Jackson (Co-host)
Right.
Jason Jackson
The same team.
Jackson (Co-host)
Right.
Jason Jackson
It's just Aaron Fox played better. You know what I mean?
Jackson (Co-host)
Yeah.
Jason Jackson
And, and so like you need a certain amount, you need a certain amount of talent, but you need those guys to play well. You need them to stay healthy. An ankle turn can alter your. Like one thing I'll say to Fox's defense is there's a clear drop off in his performance from before the ankle injury to after the ankle injury. You need, you need to get some breaks along the way like Giannis in 2021 got a game winning jump shot from Chris Middleton in game seven in overtime, like that, that shot doesn't go in and KD makes a shot instead. Like Giannis goes home in round two and maybe he never wins the title.
Jackson (Co-host)
Right.
Jason Jackson
And how is he discussed right now? You know, I mean, frankly, this series is. This series was so much closer than it looked. This one we just watched. Oh, yeah, like OG Anunobi misses that tip in long off the back rim. It's two, two, just fundamentally different series. And that involves also in game two, Wemby peeing down his leg. Like, the margins are extremely small. You need luck, you need role players to get hot. You need maybe a big call to go your way in a big spot. Like, there are so many things you need to win the title, unless you're just way more talented than everybody. And, you know, it's just, it's just something that I get reminded of every year. And it's why, like, when we talk about these things, making it super reductive in terms of like, oh, like this guy wasn't good enough to get the job done, or that guy, it's. There's so many variables at play.
Jackson (Co-host)
Another question we got about Jalen Brunson, can we give Jalen Brunson? And it made me think of this when you were talking about takeaways from the season. Can we give Jalen Brunson credit for taking the discount and allowing the Knicks to fill out their roster with better players? And that's something we talked about with the Spurs. Well, not that anyone took a discount, but that they have so many contributions from guys on their rookie contract.
Jason Jackson
So.
Jackson (Co-host)
But focusing on Brunson, can we give him credit for taking that discount?
Jason Jackson
He deserves so much credit for this. It was something that was kind of like downplayed when it first happened. Like, it wasn't a big deal. He made 35 million this year. He makes less than 38 next year. He makes 40 in 2027. And he makes 43 and 28, 29. Let me put it very simply. Austin Reeves is going to make more money in the next three years than Jalen Brunson. And Austin will probably deserve it. I think he deserves it. And Jalen Brunson is going to win a Finals mvp. Like, when you look at the contracts, it's like, this is a team next year. Carl Anthony Towns, 57 million. OG Anunoby, 42 million. Jalen Brunson obviously is 38 million. Mikhail Bridges, 33 million. Josh Hart, 21 million. Like this year, Mitchell Robinson was on the books for $13 million. Like, he made it so that they could afford more good basketball players. End of story.
Jackson (Co-host)
Pretty amazing stuff. We'll do one more sort of question about the game. And then I got a couple other sort of, like, nice notes from. From some people in the chat. Super chat from bro. He said, what do you make of the spurs consistently having their second half collapses? Is that more on Wemby, Mitch Johnson, Steph Castle, Fox? I mean, a combination of or sort of. How do you reckon with the. The second half situation for them?
Jason Jackson
I thought that the Knicks had a clear depth advantage in this series. Couple things. So, like, for instance, like, every time you saw Keldon Johnson or Carter Bryant or Luke Cornette, like, Dylan Harper was really the only depth piece that really played well for the Spurs. Whereas, like, whether you get a big Mitchell Robinson game, you get a big Jose Alvarado game, like, there was. There was a certain amount of, like, the, the. The Knicks just had the ability to put together more lineups that worked together. I think, like, one of the things you noticed in this series because Fox struggled so much, if it wasn't like Dylan Harper and Victor Weminyama on the floor, things just really, really struggled for San Antonio. I think fatigue played a role. I also think, just in general, this Knicks group deserves a lot of credit for being very resilient, and they frankly just built rhythm offensively and solved the puzzle as each game progressed. And I think Jalen Brunson specifically deserves a lot of credit for that, too. But, like, it felt like every game, and you can kind of actually, it shows up in the points tonight. 13 in the first quarter, 24 in the second, 28 in the third, 29 in the fourth. Each, like, the spurs come out and they throw that crazy defensive punch, and it just looks nearly impossible to score on them. And the Knicks just keep chiseling away and chiseling away, and they find little gaps here, you know, open catch and shoot threes that they pay off transition sequences. Jalen Brunson pours in some scoring runs. Like, it just felt like the Knicks offense was able to solve the spurs defensive puzzle as each game went along.
Jackson (Co-host)
All right, couple things. First, super chat from Free Feel. He said, love you, Jason. Love the pod. What is your New York bagel order?
Jason Jackson
Oh, God, I've never had a New York bagel. I've never been a big bagel guy, but I, I will. Typically when I have a bagel, just have something like a jalapeno team cream cheese. Like, nice, pretty Basic on like a. Like a. I don't know, like a plain bagel or something like that. Not a big bagel guy. Sorry. From Tucson, Arizona. It's for very much into breakfast burritos and like that.
Jackson (Co-host)
So super chat from Chase. He said thank you. He's been giving us super chats all. I'll play up long. And his username is like Eric. Is Chase Eric or Eric Chase? I wasn't really sure about his full name. He said thank you, Jason Jackson, for another great season. You two are the Goats and have been my number one B ball shows since 2022. Hope you get some rest. Looking forward to the offseason. By the way, my name is actually Eric, but you can still call me Chase Eric. Thank you, my dog. We appreciate the super chats. We appreciate that you following along this season and all the seasons before. So thank you, bro.
Jason Jackson
Yes, thank you so much, man. Thank you for supporting us in the show.
Jackson (Co-host)
I think, Jason, you can take your. Your moment to sort of reflect on the season here if you'd like.
Jason Jackson
Yeah. So I do this on the final night each year. I just want to talk briefly with you guys. We had an incredibly successful playoff run. It was by far the best playoff run we've had in the history of the show. We set a bunch of records. We had our most successful live stream ever after game seven of the OKC San Antonio series. We set a record for concurrence on a live stream. We broke our record for most views in a single calendar day. I think four different times. Obviously we added a boatload of subscribers. We got over 140,000 subs on the channel. Now overall, in terms of viewership for the entire playoff run, it was a record for us by a wide margin as well. And so obviously Jackson and I are competitive dudes and we want to do the best we can. And so seeing that feels like a win for us in a big way, obviously. But at the same time, it's not lost on me that that support that comes from you guys. So first and foremost, I just want to thank you guys for supporting the show. I have gotten to experience some of the coolest things of my entire life over the course of the last four years. In this year, especially from getting to work with people that I respect profoundly, like Nick Wright and like Brian Windhorst, and to get to interview a player that I've respected for a long time in Derrick White to like, I grew up listening to the Herd. It was such a cool moment for me to get to go on The Herd, both virtually and in person to go visit in Chicago. I'm co hosting the herd on the 22nd of this month. I'm doing the Jason McIntyre job for an entire three hour set. Then, like, I have gotten to experience and do things that I never in a million years thought I'd be able to do. I talk with my wife a lot about how like the. The ability to like watch a game that I love so much and to have takes like, like just thoughts, just it that I just want to get out and to have a platform and that you guys care to listen. It's just something that I don't ever take for granted. And I hope you guys understand how thankful I am for every single one of you guys for supporting the show. And yeah, you know, we get, we get our trolls just like everybody else in the space does. But I know that overwhelmingly the vast majority of you guys are just people who love basketball like I do and like Jackson does. And that you're just here, part of this community, enjoying this wonderful game with us and that you're well meaning and that you're just good, kind people. And I just am so thankful to have so many of you guys supporting the show. It's important to understand that there's a shit ton of work that goes into this. Jackson came onto the show in. It'll be two years in February if I remember correctly. So it's been about a year and a half now and he has completely transformed the way that this show is done with the effort and energy that he puts in every single day to make the show great. And frankly, like, I feel like I've got just a partner in the trenches who's working his ass off to help make this show great every single day. And I. He's become a very good friend of mine and I just hope you guys understand and appreciate everything that Jackson does to make this show go. I feel like I have the best in the business as my partner and I'm excited that we get to continue working together hopefully for a very long time. My wife, as you can imagine, it's not fun to have me disappear into the basement every single night for basically seven weeks and then every other night, you know, when we get into the finals. And obviously I work a lot during the regular season as well, but this time of year is especially hard. And like we moved to Denver and it used to be that when we were in Tucson, you know, we had this deep repertoire of friends and family for her to go spend time with when I'm working, but she's just been incredibly supportive of, of just how demanding this job can be, especially this time of year. So I just want to give my wife a shout out. She's incredible. She's a basketball player herself, she played in college and I just, I just, I just feel super lucky to have her as well. Lastly, Logan Swain, the head of content here at the Volume. He is the dude who gave me my first shot and who is just basically the. He just believes in me and just always is giving me confidence and helping me see the bigger picture of, of what we're trying to build here. And I just feel super lucky to have the team that I have and the people that believe in me and the people that support me. And again, all of you guys for supporting us and supporting the show, I can't believe it's over. It's technically not over because as you guys know, it stays crazy here for about a month. We're still going to be going five times a week. Basically between now and the end of that first weekend of summer league. We've got obviously NBA Finals wrap up coming up this week. The draft is literally a week from Tuesday and it's the biggest and most consequential draft of the time that I've been covering the league. So we'll definitely be doing a ton of deep dives into draft stuff. Then obviously free agency is on the tail end of that. We're expecting a Giannis trade at some point in the next couple of days. Kyrie Irving might get traded, Anthony Davis might get traded. And then at the tail end of it all summer league, which is always just an incredible time, it's going to be batshit with AJ DeBonsa and it Cam Boozer and Darren Peterson and all these dudes that are going to be playing in Vegas where I will be, Jackson will be and we'll be covering that. And then once we get done with that Sunday of summer league, that's when we'll kind of enter chill mode a little bit and we'll relax and, and we'll kind of kind of dive into more of our offseason topics like player rankings and historical rankings and things along those lines. But we did make it to the end of this crazy playoff grind and again, as I said, I just want to thank everybody involved the team and you guys for supporting us again. As always, I appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. I hope all of you guys have an incredible rest of your weekend. I'll be on Colin tomorrow, but we won't have a show tomorrow, so if you want to see me with Colin, you'll see me tomorrow evening. Otherwise, Monday morning I'll see you guys for some final finals. Wrap up.
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Jason Jackson
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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Date: June 14, 2026
Host: Jason Jackson (w/ Jackson, Co-host)
This "Hoops Tonight" episode celebrates and dissects the New York Knicks' stunning 2026 NBA Finals victory over the San Antonio Spurs (4-1), capping a season-long underdog run. Host Jason Jackson provides an in-depth reaction to the Knicks’ championship, highlights Jalen Brunson’s Finals MVP performance, analyzes key moments and contributors, critiques the Spurs’ collapse, and explores the larger significance of this win for the NBA. The episode also features a lively, wide-ranging fan Q&A covering league legacy questions, player rankings, and postseason takeaways.
Knicks: Unlikely Champions
Jalen Brunson’s Historic Play
Key Quote (on Brunson):
Finals MVP Official: "Jackson just messaged me. Jalen Brunson is officially your Finals MVP. Very deservingly so." (10:45)
OG Anunoby: Defensive anchor, huge in clutch; "A role player that eclipses many of the stars in the NBA." (16:37)
Karl-Anthony Towns:
Josh Hart:
Mikal Bridges, Landry Shamet, Mitchell Robinson: Praised for timely contributions and depth throughout run.
Coach Mike Brown:
Second-Half Collapses:
Player Focus:
Parity & Opportunity in the Modern NBA
Depth, Luck, and Margins
| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |---|---|---| | 08:33 | Jason Jackson | "Jalen Brunson's variety, the foul grifting he did in the second half tonight, his multifaceted offensive attack allowed him to generate 45 points against the best defense in the NBA in a closeout game where nobody could score." | | 12:24 | Jason Jackson | "The difference in this series ultimately was that… Jaylen Brunson was the one guy that was like, in this setting where no one can do [anything] on offense, I can get my game off. And that ultimately was the difference." | | 24:27 | Jason Jackson | "He [Mike Brown] out-coached Mitch Johnson in this series." | | 39:12 | Jason Jackson | "[Victor Wembanyama] is ahead of pace for the GOAT conversation… Not by much, doesn't mean he is the GOAT. But you're lying to yourself if you don't think he's ahead of schedule." | | 44:17 | Jason Jackson | "[Dylan Harper has] a combination of power and explosiveness that is extremely rare at the guard position… That dude's a freaking star." | | 62:00 | Jason Jackson | "[Winning a title] requires a lot in this era… the margins are extremely small. You need luck, you need role players to get hot…" |
The episode is a love letter to an improbable Knicks championship, celebrating team-wide contributions, Jalen Brunson's unmatched postseason run, and the hard-won path from "second-tier" to NBA royalty. It concludes with the message that, in this era, championships require not just talent, but resilience, selflessness, adaptability, and a dash of luck—and that the right team find its moment to shine.
If you haven’t watched the game or followed the series, this episode will give you both context and color on how the Knicks overcame the odds, why Brunson was the difference, where the Spurs came up short, and why this championship is special in NBA history.