James Dolan Talks Watch Party Controversy, Trumps Appearance, & Guarantees Knicks Win!

**Craig Carton** (0:00)
The Carton Show with Big Mac.
Obviously getting ready for the biggest sporting event in New York City this century, and happy to have a dear friend and the owner of the New York Knicks, Mr. Jim Dolan, coming by the studio. Jim, good to see you. You obviously know Chris over there, and how are you doing today? You doing okay?

**James Dolan** (0:19)
I'm a little anxious, but I'm okay.

**Craig Carton** (0:21)
Before we get into all the stuff happening today, I want to take you back to our very first show, January 5th, 2026, if you're kind enough to be our first guest. And I said to you back then, should we expect a big trade this year?
John is coming here. What are your thoughts about this specific Nick team and the fact we basically ran it back from last year with the new head coach in Mike Brown, and you said, don't expect anything major. This team's good enough to win a championship. And now here we are, game four of the 2-1 lead. Your thoughts on what's transpired over the last six months and more specifically the last month and a half?

**James Dolan** (1:12)
Well, you know, I think what I said it was... There we go. Yep, you got it. That's what I said it was.

**Craig Carton** (1:17)
You got one right.

**James Dolan** (1:18)
Yeah, you know. Look, Leon and I believe the team was good enough last year.
And you know, we were fortunately, I think, you know, we're proving it right.

**Craig Carton** (1:33)
Yep.

**James Dolan** (1:34)
And, you know, I expect to win tonight, being as if I make predictions here, they come true. We're going to win tonight. We're going to win the finals.

**Craig Carton** (1:43)
Now you're talking. All right, let's get into a couple of things before I get to the watch party and, you know, this, you know, frozen zone now around the garden, which we saw for Monday night. I have to ask you as the owner of the Knicks, your thoughts on the officiating in games two and three, and then were you disappointed that the league did not retroactively give Wembe the flagrant one for the way he manhandled Jalen Brunson?

**James Dolan** (2:08)
Okay, so I'm a governor of the NBA, right? And I'm restricted and bound by the rules of the NBA, of which there are a lot of.
So there's little that I can say. I will say, if you read the cover of the New York Post today, I think they got it right.

**Craig Carton** (2:28)
Okay.

**James Dolan** (2:29)
Okay. Yes. Which hopefully won't get me in trouble.
But you know, look, in the end, it's not, it's not who we play and it's not the officiating, it's how we play. If the team that comes out on the floor tonight, the Knicks team that we know and love, right? If they come out, there's nothing that can stop them. Not, you know, missed calls, not, you know, seven foot four aliens. Nothing will stop them if they play their game. I believe in these guys. I believed in them when I was here the first time that they and everybody who's here should believe in them too because they can do it.

**Craig Carton** (3:16)
Yeah. And I think in fairness to what happened in game three on Monday night, the reality is that it's the worst game they played in a month and a half, right? They're a little sloppy. They didn't shoot as well as they've been shooting. And during that 13 game win streak, this reminded me of game two against Atlanta. And they just had a bad game. Now, we can talk about the officials. I think it's a smaller part of it. But I think to a man, the Knicks would tell you, the players would tell you, that they didn't play up to their standard.

**James Dolan** (3:45)
They would tell you they didn't play the game they wanted to play.

**Craig Carton** (3:48)
Bingo. We're with you on that.

**James Dolan** (3:49)
The important part of that is that they can play that game. They know how to pull themselves together and play the kind of game that we saw like in, was it game three in Atlanta that we were up against?

**Craig Carton** (4:04)
Yes.

**James Dolan** (4:05)
I mean I'm not predicting we're going to win by 40 points tonight.

**Craig Carton** (4:08)
Would be nice though. It's also not supposed to be easy to win a championship.

**James Dolan** (4:13)
No and San Antonio is not an easy opponent.

**Craig Carton** (4:16)
No they are not.