Hour 1: Mike Breen

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This is The Michael Kay Show podcast.

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**Michael Kay** (0:26)
And good afternoon, everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Thursday, June 11, 2026 Me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagement. It's the fastest two hours in Sports Talk Radio, but I don't know if two hours are going to get it done. You know the password 1-800-919-3776.
To paraphrase the great Jack Buck, do you believe what you just saw? It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. I was lucky enough to be there yesterday, and the way they played in the first half, you know how I worry so much about when I'll go, and if somebody said, you have to bet your life that the Knicks are going to come back, I'd say there's no way. The way they played in the first half, there was no way. You're watching, midway through the second quarter, I'm looking up at the board, and it just seemed like the spurs were never missing, and they were shooting 68.3% from the three-point stripe. 68.3%, now, if you want to consider how absolutely incredible that is, if you were in an open gym, you'd be hard-pressed to shoot 70% on threes. I mean, just look at the three-point shooting contest. Do they hit 70% of their shots? And these are the best shooters in the NBA, and the spurs were draining them one after the other after the other. But there is a resiliency to this Nick team that's really hard to quantify. They don't give up. They don't give up. I mean, we're hearing them talk about it after they completed this unbelievable comeback, the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history, down by 29 And they said, well, we just chipped away, and Brunson said we were looking for singles and stuff like that. And I can't even believe that they thought that they would come back from that. Because midway through the fourth quarter, they're still down by a truckload of points. But they somehow did it. And they had some help. And just like the spurs had help in the first half, because the Knicks couldn't score, and the Knicks couldn't hit shots, and then the spurs were hitting every shot, the tie turned. So they had 76 points in the first half. They scored 30 in the second half. 30 in the second half. The Knicks had 32 points in the fourth quarter alone.
But you saw the inexperience of San Antonio. The mistakes they made. Now, the Knicks made mistakes too. Let's not have revisionist history and say they played a perfect game in the second half. They did not. They did not play a perfect game. And we could talk about the heart miss layup that would have given them the lead. Then they make a stop and they have a 24 second violation and turn the ball over. I mean, just unbelievable stuff. But still they persevered because they have it in their DNA. They've done it before and they know that they can do it again. Once you do it once, you know you can do it again.
And they did it. So, you look at what happened with the Spurs. And Charles Barkley said after the game, that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. You know, they were up by 29 points. Stop shooting threes. Now, I know the whole NBA is analytically built about threes. But let's use analytics on how you keep a 29 point lead. You don't have to risk three point shots. Just take the best shot you could get. Milk the clock. I'm not saying do a four corners, but milk the clock. Take 15, 16 seconds off the clock and get yourself a two point play. And it would be awfully hard for the Knicks to catch up. Even if they're hitting threes to your twos, you've got a 29 point advantage for you to play with.
And Victor Wembenyama shows his youth and shows his fragility. I'm sorry. We talked about this during yesterday's show. He played really well in game three because he had the extra day off because of the travel. And I said, let's see how he plays in game four with just a one day off between the two games. And he played very well in the first half and then he completely lost it in the second half. I think what? He hit three of 14 shots in the second half. And then when it came down to crunch time, he missed two free throws. This is a guy who's an 80% free throw shooter. He missed two free throws. And if he hits those free throws, we might be having a different show today.