Colin Cowherd (3:53)
I move slow. I'm not nearly as dynamic as the Indy 500. By the way, the Knicks took a riveting Game 3. The Knicks took it over the Pacers in Indy thanks to an incredible comeback in the fourth quarter. And last night in Indiana really became a what kind of man are you type of game. For New York, two things happened. Number one, Carl Anthony Towne said, I'll show you what kind of man I am. I'm going to single handedly take over the fourth quarter. Listen, the dude, he has quarters like this. He averages 23 a game. In his career. When he was in his prime, Karl Anthony Towns always ended up near the top of those GM surveys they do. Who would you start a franchise with? He doesn't play any defense. He's a little quirky, but he can dominate games. I've been to three or four games where he was playing and he was the best player on the floor at some point in all those games. So. And the second thing that happened, and this does not happen very often for the Pacers, they lost their way offensively. So Halliburton end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth. So end of third, beginning of the fourth, about four and a half minutes he was on the bench. In that time, a 15 point lead evaporated to four and then he comes back in and they just never quite felt the same again. Indiana, it's hard to get them off their offensive game, but even when the Knicks were down four, three, two points, it felt like they were in control. So the Pacers are a rhythm team and that they have the fastest pace in the league and they get out of their rhythm and all of a sudden you had Neesmith and other guys. McConnell trying to run the offense is like, bro, that, that's not it. This is Halliburton's offense. They lost their quarterback. They only shot 36% in the second half at home and Sh42%. That's the worst half of basketball for the Pacers. And just to give you in the playoffs, to give you another example, it flashed on the screen at one point in the first half, they had 14 fast break points. They were running the Knicks out of the arena in the second half, total two fast break points. Halliburton sits, they lose their rhythm, he comes back in, tries to kickstart it, and he never could. And what did we talk about last week? Whoever controls the tempo is going to win the games and, or the series. And the Knicks compressed it, slowed it down. And also, and this matters, the Knicks hit their last 15 free throws. I know that's not a glamorous headline, but remember game one, the Knicks had control and they, they were missing free throws. Open the door. This was the opposite. They were controlling tempo in game one. They lost tempo, missed free throws here late, they controlled tempo, hit free throws. And so they were a better road team than they were a home team. The road team has won every game in this series. So the Knicks slowed it down, hit the freebies. And I thought their defensive rotations were much better, especially when you had once Halliburton sat down for that stretch. And you see this in football all the time. You have momentum, you have a bad series, you have a fumble, there's a turnover, and you can never find the momentum again. It's hard. Momentum matters, and especially matters in playoff games. So we have ourselves a series. The Knicks blew game one. It kind of felt like they stole game three. Indiana felt like the better team in game two. We've got a series. And here's Tibbs in playoff basketball. I know you guys like roll your eyes when they say no lead is safe, but no lead is safe. Because I think with, with the three point shot, people make up ground quickly, pace the game, make up ground quickly. You see comebacks all the time. And if you let up, just A little bit. That's. That's what happens. Okay, so this is a story you may be wondering. I don't think it's going to make a big deal either way. But Aaron Rodgers, according to Jeremy Fowler, there are people in the NFL, and Jeremy Fowler works at espn. Very good reporter. He is saying there are people in the NFL, many, that believe Aaron Rodgers is waiting on Minnesota. I don't know that to be true, but I will say this. Aaron loves to make people think he's a mystery and the media can't figure him out. And he does that because it invalidates us. And we're the one group of people he can't control. He's worshiped by football, people he loved by teammates, the one group he can't control us. And so he wants to invalidate us. And he's not J.D. salinger. It's not that mysterious. The Steelers are a shaky fit and Aaron knows it. He doesn't want to offend Mike Tomlin. It may be if he wants to play his best spot. But they can't figure out offense. I've gone over this a million times. They're tone deaf to offense. They just, they. I think they're now making moves just to make moves. Let's just move off George Pickens and let's get a pick and let's overspend for DK Metcalf, and they're just making moves to make moves. So there are reports, and I don't care about his personal life, that Aaron's personal life, he's going through some turbulence. You wish him well. I don't want to get into any speculation there, but I just think Aaron is too smart to think the Steelers are a good fit. The O line's been a wreck for years. The odds coordinator position, they've run through them. They lost Najee Harris, their left tackle. And by the way, it does matter. He went from Green Bay, which has always had an offensive culture. They always get quarterback right. They always have offensive coaches. They always have good offensive lines. Green Bay does offense right, and they've been doing it right for 30 years. Pittsburgh does defense right, and the only two times they've done offense right, they had Terry Bradshaw and Big Ben. And in between that, they're not the same franchise. They win games, they don't win big games. And that's what Pittsburgh's going through right now. They've been a bottom 10 total offense six years in a row. And that's hard to do when you look at the two New York franchises and Carolina and some bad offense in this league and the Bears. So the Vikings makes a ton of sense. Great, brilliant offensive head coach and play caller. They play indoors. He knows the division. They have Justin Jefferson. They upgraded their offensive line in the off season. There's also a story that's interesting. So Aaron was apparently on some podcast and said when asked about the Saints, because we don't know exactly what the Saints are doing, is it going to be Spencer Rattler? You know, And Aaron Rodgers was quoted saying, yeah, I'm too old. I don't want to live in Louisiana. Sorry. So what that means is where Aaron plays matters to Aaron. He is thinking about it. He doesn't want to live in New Orleans. So that's another reason indoors knows the division, nfc. He moved over to a defensive culture, playing outdoors in the Northeast with the jets, and it was a mess. Aaron doesn't want to do that again. Jeff Pearlman came on last week. He wrote a book about Brett Favre. And Aaron was all through the book. And Favre didn't treat Aaron very well. And I grew to kind of respect what Aaron had to go through, but he made a point about where Aaron's played. And the fit is really crucial when you consider Aaron's personality. I just think over time, especially being.
