Big Questions Heading into the NBA Finals

All right, let's talk about kind of some of the questions that we have going into this.

Some of it came out of Media day, and the biggest one is Mitchell Robinson, uh, who was a big part of what the Knicks did in the, um, uh , the conference playoffs.

He has a broken hand.

I don't know.

I keep hearing Pinky.

I'm not sure I'm buying Pinky.

Like, I know, I'm not.

Like I think, I think it's more it's making you dubious.

Some of the wrapping New York Knicks are lying.

Do you think an NBA could his pinky be sports team in general would lie about an injury?

I think it's the more, it's more significant than just to me, I, my guess is it's more, it's just a guess.

My guess is more significant than just a broken pinky.

I think there's something substantial there that he's dealing with.

Broken pinky doesn't tend to be surgery, although I guess the ligament can, can do a lot of different things.

We're not medical experts, of course, here on the show, but if, if they're, if they're talking, if they're talking about it's iffy for him to play and if he does play, I think that's gamesmanship or no.

Well, I, no, I, I think like I saw ESPN reporting that if he does play he's gonna have a pretty bulky brace on that hand.

Like again that doesn't scream broken pinky like the bat the ball, I, I guess.

Look, if, if you're Mitchell Robinson, I looked this up, when they played in the NBA Cup championship against the Spurs, he only played for 18 minutes, but he had 15 rebounds in that 18 minutes, 2 blocks, um, you know, that's what they need him for, obviously they need him.

They need him on that back line, and you can do all of that with a Raptor.

That's why the whole, is he gonna get play fouled like when, when do they start fouling.

this guy, like you're gonna, you certainly can't, but is his free throw shooting numbers gonna go down?

Well, they're not gonna go up, so I mean, I, I, that is, I, I would expect the Spurs to do hack aic every chance they get with him at the game.

No, I mean, obviously regardless of how much he can play and how he can play, and I do actually still think that he will be able to do some of the things that he can do for them.

It will be less than if he wasn't hurt.

And I'm curious about what the injury was.

That it was very weird that there was an incident in.

Game 4 against the Cavaliers, that definitely could have been a hand injury to Mitchell Robinson.

If you look at the video, there was a bunch of traffic there.

He was down on the ground.

It's certainly, if someone said that's when he broke his pinky, nobody would have questioned him.

In fact, I believe a teammate reached down to pull him up off the floor, and he jerked his hand back and, you know, went with the other hand instead and everyone was like, oh, OK, that's when he did it.

So, everybody, and there was no, oh man, how did Mitchell Robinson break his pinky?

There was an explanation just sitting there.

I thought it was interesting that the Knicks, they didn't take it, were like it was a non-basketball injury.

They didn't have to announce that at home, yes, right?

They didn't have to announce it.

This is what I'm saying.

Like I, I don't, there's a lot of questions about this injury, and I just, my feeling is that it's more significant than just a little pinky injury.

I feel like if it was just a pinky injury, probably doesn't undergo surgery, probably just tapes it up and goes out there and does his thing, which again would.

It would be fine for someone like him who's just rebounding, blocking shots.

It it was gonna happen to anyone on this team, this right, gotta happen to, yeah, you don't need your shooting hand if you're Mitchell Robinson.

You never shoot, so.

Um, I, I wonder what his availability is going to look like when he's out there.

How bulky is that brace that he's going to have to wear?

What do the Spurs do to take advantage of it?

How quickly they start fouling him when he's in the games.

Like they're gonna have to play Mitchell Robinson at the start of quarters because you can't afford.

To get to the 4 foul range and all of a sudden you're hacking him and the game slows to a crawl.

I hate it.

It's aesthetically displeasing.

It's absolutely the right strategy.

The guy stinks from the free throw line and if he has a bad hand, he's not gonna make any free throws.

Crazy.

Do we have to watch the free throws or can't we just be like all agree?

It's, it's like, like baseball with the intentional walk.

We don't do that anymore.

he missed two.

Let's just pick it up.

We're just good.

Let's pick it up right there.

I mean, let, let's say he's limited or doesn't play.

How big a loss is that for them?

I think it's pretty significant.

I mean, again, my biggest question is what are these Knicks who have gone through this last, you know, month and a half gonna look like against, especially Victor Webayama?

And if you don't have Mitchell Robinson there.

That's gotta be a huge part of the equation.

I mean, do you think it's not a big deal?

I think it's a big deal.

I mean, because if for no other reason than you lose a big body, however many minutes you were going to play him, and a big part of this series.

It is going to be the Knicks' ability to drain the energy of Victor Wambayama.

They're going to try to wrestle with him.

They're gonna have OG Annanobi probably start out on him.

He makes the most sense.

Um, Mitchell Robinson will get some reps.

Maybe Kat gets some reps, and all of these guys, Part of their responsibility to me is to wrestle with him and just try to lower that energy bar a little bit each and every quarter, each and every game just to try to drain him to the point where he's less effective late in games and later in the series.

You don't have Mitchell Robinson.

I mean, who are you turning to?

Like there's not a lot of trustworthy guys on that bench with that kind of size.

Well, for Mitchell Robinson , is it going to be an advantage on the other end of the court that he's got this big club to swing around at Wendy?

We've seen that.

I mean, we have seen before guys use their injury wrappings as, as an advantage.

Wait, in what way?

Like, to didn't someone come out with like their entire hand basically I've seen that before, yeah, yeah, also there's, there's a flip side to that though too.

Like Wemby strikes me as the kind of guy that like, like a Pat Riley type of player that if he sees a hand.

On Mitchell Robinson's hand that's going whack.

He's whacking it every single time.

It's what they did in the 80s, the the 90s, all that stuff.

It became less cool now because everybody says what want that basketball back apparently Wemby, but Wemby sounds, seems like the type of guy that would take advantage of any opportunity like that.

He would go for it.

So look, I, I, you're right, if it's gonna happen to any player.

Right guy to happen to, but they need him.

Like, I, I don't think this series is winnable, frankly, if they don't, or they aren't able to count on 15 to 20 minutes per game for Mitchell Robinson.

It's kind of as simple as that.

Um, going into game one.

The question to me is what's better, you know, the sharpness that San Antonio has coming off the seven-game series or the lengthy rest that New York had coming off the 8-day layoff.

Now I'm sure both of these teams would want it to be a little bit in the middle somewhere in the middle, right?

I'm sure the Spurs would like 5 days off instead of 3, and The Knicks would like 5 days off instead of 8.

They both like 5 days off.

Uh, but do you think one or the other gives a clear advantage?

Well, I need to also see how De'Aaron Fox is doing because there were times during that Western Conference Finals he was a decoy out there.

First of all, there were times he just didn't play, and then when he did start to get back to playing, he was more of a decoy than anything, and they need him to be at 100% for this series.

So I think the quick turnaround for them is going to possibly be an issue with Fox, and I'm interested to see how he's doing.

I chatted with him today.

Of course, he told me he's fine.

That's everybody's fine.

All fine.

Everybody's doing.

Mitchell Robinson has no injuries, no injuries at all.

They just hit him from the media today, but what else?

Um, how about that too?

Like finals, and you don't like even just sit the guy down and let him say like to do though than than that actually, I guess if you sit the guy down, you're gonna have to be people drilling down on how it happened because that to me is the big question.

If it's not a basketball injury, did you punch a wall?

Did you punch somebody else?

Like what happened?

What exactly happened in that moment?

Yeah, yeah.

And look, I mean, I guess they can get away with it saying that.

They don't know if he's gonna play or not, but I'm actually kind of curious how they got away with that today.

And if Victor Webayama gets a warning for not showing up postgame the other night, does, is there a warning?

I guess the injury thing probably prevents, but I, you know, you go into Thursday, if he plays, he's gonna have to talk, and that's what people are gonna have to at some point this plus the NBA, you know, the NBA is kind of scared of the Knicks like they are.

They don't, they're scared.

I do think they're, I don't think so.

I think at the upper levels of the NBA, I don't think they don't, but they don't like to challenge the Knicks.

The Knicks push back on everything the NBA wants to do.

I said it's a Knicksian thing to do, right, and the NBA doesn't really like to confrontation with them because like they, the Knicks also like confrontation.

They also enjoy that.

Like James Dolan enjoys confrontation.

It's a fact.

I, I'm not sure if I go that far, but yeah, he does well, no, no, with Dolan, yes, of course.

I don't know if the NBA is afraid of him, but I certainly find him enough.

I don't know.

All right, anyway, anyway, um, look, I, I am very what's so exciting about this series is no matter who wins, the rest of us win.

And there's not very many series where it feels like that.

If the Knicks win, it's good for the NBA when the Knicks are playing well.

It's good for the NBA when the Knicks win.

It's the largest fan base in the NBA.

They spend the most money.

It's a profit sharing league.

Like if you want to be even just that mercenary because you hate the Knicks, but you know, your team will get money out of this Knicks run so that you can feel good about that if you're a different kind of fan.

And it's just fun.

Look , basketball, the joy of a team that as much as the big bad money spent, you know, that New York is sort of the big bad guys in a lot of parts of this country.

This team hasn't won since 1973.

That's been 52 years.

So in some ways, it's a, it's a Goliath that gets to be a David for a while, which is pretty cool.

And then on the other side of the coin, if the Spurs and Wembby win, I mean, I guess unless you're another team in the West that's trying to peak right now, but everybody wins because this guy is just so fun to watch and he's just so transcendent, and you feel like you're literally watching something you've never seen before.

And, you know, Michael Jordan, I covered.

Michael Jordan in Chicago.

I covered him in Washington DC such that that was Michael Jordan was incredible, but he was the kind of incredible and the best version of a basketball player we've seen before.

And Kobe was the best version in some ways of a basketball anyone had seen up until Michael.

And like, you know, LeBron is the best version that we have seen up until whatever, but it is of the same kind of basketball player.

Wemby is the kind of basketball player we have just never seen.

I think that to bring it back to rest versus The Spurs part you're like, why didn't you answer my question?

Uh, well, my question is it depends on De'Aaron Fox's health.

I'd rather be the Spurs.

You'd rather be the Knicks for De'Aaron Fox's sake.

Like, like if, if De'Aaron Fox needs more rest, I think the rest of the team though doesn't really need it.

I think 3 days is a long time.

Like, I, I feel like we're, we're kind of not us, but like generally people are acting like it's a.

It's a fast turnaround.

This is not Cleveland coming off the Detroit series where they had to fly to New York and play like less than 48 hours later.

This is 3 full days, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday didn't have to get another plane.

They got home late Saturday night.

They probably all slept in, got their treatment.

Same thing Monday.

They're doing a walkthrough on Tuesday.

Like that's a long time.

In basketball context , yes, the only thing I thought was interesting was Victor Wamanyama said today in his press conference, I's gonna get to this, yeah, is that he said we have to change our mindset and that it was such a high.

They beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, who, you know, all season everyone had said, oh, this is the real finals.

Like that's their nemesis.

That's going to be their nemesis for a long time.

For Wemy, we know how he feels about Chet, you know, hugely emotional return.

San Antonio, pops at the airport.

All these fans are at the airport, and Victor made the point of, you know, the famous job's not done.

And I think he said, what, we've got 30 more hours of basketball to play.

And, uh, just the mental reset from that was something he highlighted as something that, well, you know what he did to, to help them reset this.

Like, I think it was Mike Wright that first reported.

I confirmed it with people in San Antonio.

He took the team.

To go see the movie Obsession, the horror movie.

Yes , I was confused about this only in that like why do you feel that that's.

You feel the messaging of obsession is, is something I, I was confused about the specific movie and why it was considered like such a, I don't know anything about the movie except it was made for like a million bucks and it's made 100 million bucks.

It's a big hit.

So that's them.

They're the young plucky I guess movie makers, I guess, something they're obsessed.

I was just, I didn't know where the end was or what the, I mean, I guess I understand.

The word is probably the right word.

You want to be obsessed with winning a championship, but he, like, clearly, the point is, clearly Webby's worried about that, worried that there might be some players in that locker room that believe they accomplished something when the reality is they haven't.

You won the Western Conference championship.

Nobody remembers who wins the Western Conference championship.

Nobody remembers who won in the Eastern Conference championship.

You remember champions.

That's what you remember.

So he's trying to get them focused, and the fact that at his media availability, he emphasized that a couple of times.

He talked about, you know, the need to, to be mentally sharp.

That gives me a little bit of reason for pause.

But I do think if they are mentally sharp, the 3 days is enough.

Maybe not for De'Aaron Fox, but he could use 5, 10, whatever to get that high ankle sprain right.

But for everybody else, for Wemby who's 22, for Castle, who's 21, for Dylan Harper, who's 20, that's all they need.