Bill Bradley talks NBA finals and politics

**Brian Lehrer** (0:05)
From WNYC, I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my Daily Politics Podcast.
It's Tuesday, June 9th.
So you didn't have to be right near Madison Square Garden yesterday, and it didn't have to be close to game time to feel the extra police presence because President Trump was going to attend the Knicks game. I happened to be walking up Lexington Avenue around 530 yesterday, and when I got to 34th Street, there were barricades and cops, and 34th Street was close to traffic, even that far east, 34th and Lex, and even then, three hours before the tip, the fans who mortgaged their kids' college educations to buy tickets had to arrive two hours before game time and could bring in no bags because of the extra security. Oh, and the Knicks lost, if you haven't heard, 115 to 111, ending their incredible playoffs winning streak. Trump got roundly booed when shown an owner James Dolan's box. Mayor Mamdani watched from Nosebleed's standing room seats. Former Mayor Bloomberg got crashed into by one of the Knicks during the game in his courtside seats. Did you see that? Bloomberg was described as shaken but uninjured.
So, Knicks mania is still gripping the city, for sure. Everybody in New York temporarily loving each other over it. Every other pedestrian I saw the last few days, like every other person suddenly showing they own a Knicks shirt or a Knicks hat or something after the mind-blowing 13 straight postseason wins. But the series itself just got more interesting. Will they finish the job and win their first NBA championship since 1970 and 1973? Well, we are so thrilled to be able to talk about it all with Bill Bradley, who was a player on those 1970 and 73 Knicks NBA championship teams. Princeton and the US Olympic team before that, that 1964 Olympics team won gold. So he has a gold medal in addition to NBA championships. He was US Senator from New Jersey from 1979 to 1997 He is now host of American Voices on Sirius XM and featured in the autobiographical documentary Rolling Along, Bill Bradley, for which he was last on the show in 2024 And he's working on a video project on talking cross-party lines with former Republican Senator John Danforth. We'll talk about that too. And yes, he was in the house at Madison Square Garden last night. So we'll talk sports, we'll talk politics, we'll talk the intersection of sports and politics. Bill, we really appreciate you making some time for us this morning. It'll be great to hear your voice again. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Bill Bradley** (2:56)
Well, Brian, thank you so much. It's always a great pleasure to be on your show.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:01)
Maybe you can answer this question that real Knicks fans have been asking. If the crowd was, you know, a lot of Wall Street tycoons and others like that who could afford the insane ticket prices, was the crowd as vocally into it as if the regular season fans at the Garden had been more present or were they more passive because they were there for the event and they just weren't emotionally invested in the same way? Did you have an impression?

**Bill Bradley** (3:27)
Of course. Of course they were involved. I mean, this is the NBA Finals. I mean, you pay too much for a ticket, okay, fine. But you still go there and yell for your team.
And I think that it was as loud, the decibel level was as loud last night as any other night I've been in the Garden.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:47)
Good to hear. About the game itself last night, after 13 straight wins, including the first two in this series against the Spurs, suddenly the Knicks seemed colder last night and a little off. Do you have a take on what happened or why, if anything changed?

**Bill Bradley** (4:04)
No, I think that San Antonio just played very well.
Webiyam is an incredible talent and he came to play last night in a way that was more aggressive than the previous two games. So I think that was a big difference. I think that there's no, I mean, the adjustment of the Knicks will make or adjustments that they will make in the normal course of playing against the team more than once and finding where the weaknesses are and how you take advantage of them and then what worked and continuing to do what worked. That's what's going to happen and I don't think that because they lost their first game in 13 or 14 games, that that means anything. I mean, we're playing in the NBA finals where the goal is you win four games and you are champion of the world and you're still ahead two to one. And there wasn't anything that happened last night that would make me believe that that changed the dynamic of the competition. I think San Antonio is a good team, a very good team. They're well-coached. They have discipline. And so I think it's going to be great. I mean, I think that the Knick players just have to continue to help each other. I mean, that's the real thing. I mean, a great team. You have players who want to help their teammate as much as they want to score themselves. And the Knicks move the ball extremely well.