If you don't remember the conversation with James, I will play that little piece for you now.

Nobody's been more entertaining than Jalen Brunson.

At least since

You're not forgetting Obi Toppin, right? I'm not.

He was number two.

He was number two.

And then I was going to go with...

What's my guy's name from Michigan? Braz Dacus.

I remember

that.

Yeah, I said, Knicks fans, you don't have to care about the 51st pick anymore.

Your team is good.

And people, you would have thought I said the Knicks shouldn't be a franchise anymore.

It was absurd that the reaction was.

So I almost tweeted it again to be funny this year, but I just...

Is that something that's an actual possibility?

Yeah,

I mean, obviously I know them all pretty well and I'm around them every day.

There's some really good guys in that locker room.

Guys that you can tell were raised well.

Guys that... treat people with respect, even when others aren't looking like that's a big thing.

Like you could just tell that there's just good character people in there.

There's some good personalities with Josh and Jalen.

But when he had the ball and they're already up one, did you think, okay, well, that was the next chance? Could you possibly have envisioned OG Ananobi having the best two plays at each end of the court in NBA history?

Yeah

... try to internalize what just happened.

Um, everybody was stuck to, stuck to the floor, stuck to their seats and, and trying to figure out what they just watched and it was, uh...

I'm, I'm, like, kind of numb to it because the Knicks have made such a, um...

They, they've made such a name for themselves with these comeback wins.

Obviously, I know they haven't done it like that in the NBA finals, but this group is...

They just find ways to win, man.

... were kind of the Golden Tempo of basketball.

What do you make of what you've seen from him game six and then also last night?

I mean, kudos to him.

I think game six was big for him in terms of just seeing the ball go in the basket and just regaining some of that confidence if he lost any in the previous two games, four and five against Atlanta.

Last night, I thought he did a great job of pursuing Tyrese Maxey.

I do think Tyrese and some of those guys were dead tired.

I don't expect to see that again on Wednesday, but.

Credit to Mikel for just using his length to disrupt him, always kind of being right there in his shirt.

What do you make of his impact and his role on how things have gone so far?

Why did he do that? Why did Mike Brown do that yesterday?

So, so Mike, a-as he said, it, it was something that they did at the end of the regular season.

For most of the year, what they would do was Brunson would play all the first and the third quarters.

KAT would come out somewhere halfway through, and then he would start the second and fourth quarters.

But somewhere around the last month or so of the season, they switched it up where those two were on the bench together to start those quarters.

Um, yes, he is correct that they did have success at the end of the regular season with it.

They even, in game one, technically had success, but the, the Knicks only won those non-Brunson and KAT minutes in game one by one point, right? Like, that's not a, a, a recipe for, for success.

Mike Brown's? How does one of your best players have just two shots in the fourth quarter?

I mean, shouldn't this have been something that should have been fixed or, or, or laid out well before like three, four games left in the season?

I think that's a, that-- That's a twofold situation, right? I think that if Karl-Anthony Towns had had the season that we're used to him having, I'm not sure we would hear those comments.

Like, it's-- He struggled the first half of the season.

He didn't struggle because of this system.

He struggled 'cause he couldn't make shots around the basket, and he wasn't making threes.

And I think that a lot of the fallback to, um, find a solution and, and whether-- I'm sure everybody's taking a little bit of blame for that.

But I mean, at the end of the day, Karl didn't put the ball in the basket the way he needed to and the way he has in his career for the first four or five months of the season.

So what do you think has been wrong?

Was it the style of play, or was it that he didn't use the bench and he used his starters too much? Is that the main reason to bring in Brown? Was it to change the offense or to change the way the whole team was used?

I mean, probably a cop-eye answer, but I think a little bit of both.

I think we all watched the Knicks last year, and as you mentioned, there were really high highs.

they were pretty predictable night in and night out offensively.

You knew what they were going to do.

You know what the kind of motive was.

A lot of Jalen, a lot of Cat, a lot of heavy starter minutes, right? And I think one thing that Mike is trying to implement with this offense is to have a little bit element of surprise where defenses don't know where the shots are going to come from.

Everything is there for them to make the finals this year.

Whatever Mike Brown has in mind for all this, is it going to work? And are they going to buy in? So that's my number

one.

I think that's great.

And I think we're in agreement there.

Just before we even see a basketball dribble, before they play a game, My inclination is that I don't know if they're going to play as fast as it's portrayed.

I think we're going to see more movement.

That's fine.

It just doesn't.

Do you think there was widespread displeasure from the players to Thibs?

Widespread, I don't know if I wanna go that far.

Would I, would I be surprised if there, there were certain players that, um, voiced their displeasure with how things went? Not at all, uh, having been around the team all season.

Um, and I know, obviously, I think it was out there even before I got here, that there was times a couple years ago where there was questions if Thibs would be around, and obviously, uh, World Wide West and, and him didn't always see eye to eye, and obviously West is the one right next to Dolan.

So, um, if you connect those dots, it's certainly possible.

I just think that...

I wouldn't say widespread, because you look around, and I think a lot of the reports were, "The team needed a new voice," right? Well, nobody's been more supportive of Tom Thibodeau than Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mitchell Robinson, who are the three core guys that have been there the longest.

(laughs)

Did anything happen in exit interviews based on your knowledge, James?

They did it in a unique way, and Ann Begley at SNY was the first to report this, James Dolan, um, sat in on the exit interviews with the prominent figures.

And I've been covering the NBA for seven years, uh, this was my eighth season.

I have never really heard of an owner sitting in on- on exit meetings of, with players and- and obviously they evaluate coaches and things like that.

But it- it was very unique.

Um, it sounds like to me that there was a hope that there would be an admittance of some of the flaws that- that took place this year.

Um, that necessarily wasn't the case.

So Thibodeau's firing, um, means the team, the team is completely sold on the roster that they currently have, and thus it's this guy who didn't have the right rotations, didn't have the right ingenuity, didn't have the right touch, didn't have the right communication skills?... and thus, he's g- he's the one that's gotta go, despite the laughingstock no longer at all being the case for this franchise, James?