00:00You know, the odds makers are basically saying the Thunder are going to win, you know, but I don't know.
00:04I mean, getting three and a half on the Thunder is, gosh, like hard to pass up.
00:08I guess I would ask you, SPJ.
00:10I mean, I suppose they were four in some spots earlier in the series, but it would seem to me
00:16that if you went back and looked at like 90 games,
00:18you may find, I don't know, one line of this magnitude where you're getting this much love for the Thunder.
00:24What do you think?
00:26Yeah, we talked about this when I joined you last time about the Thunder being dogs,
00:30and it hasn't happened a lot in the postseason, and it definitely hasn't happened a lot this calendar year and
00:34this regular season as well.
00:37If I'm betting this game with my heart, as I said to you right before we got started, don't we
00:41all just want to see a game seven?
00:43I mean, the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs are looking like we're not going to get a game seven.
00:47Obviously, the Knicks got the brooms out in the Eastern Conference Finals, and we only got four games there.
00:51So if you're an NBA fan, your heart's going, oh, come on, San Antonio, cover this spread.
00:55But as you mentioned, it's really hard to not look at the defending champs at the plus three and a
00:59half number and want to lay some points there as well.
01:01So I stayed away from the spread in this particular game.
01:03But just to look at the game as a whole, Craig, what we saw last game in game five was
01:09Victor Wimbanyama not rising to the moment.
01:12In the two games that the San Antonio Spurs have won in this series, Victor Wimbanyama has taken 20-plus
01:18shots, has taken over the basketball game, has been dominant down low in the paint.
01:22And in the three losses that the Oklahoma City team has won and the Spurs have lost, Wimbanyama has been
01:28a little bit pedestrian.
01:30Only 15 shots in those three games, not dominant in the paint, kind of settling for jumpers, settling for three
01:35-point shots.
01:36So the biggest thing that I'm looking at, and I know it sounds chalky, I know it sounds to say,
01:40oh, you're just going to talk about the superstar player.
01:42But this feels like a moment for Wimby's career.
01:45We've obviously already crowned this guy one of the best players in the association.
01:48We've crowned this guy as obviously the voters thought he was a top three MVP candidate at even his young
01:53age.
01:54If you think about the guys like LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, like the Kobe Bryants, like they all
02:00have those moments,
02:00even very early in their career where it's the highlights you see of them ascending to the moment, right,
02:06and rising to that occasion and making a name for themselves early on.
02:10So to me, looking at this game, I'm looking square in the 7'5 man's eyes, even though I don't
02:15reach up to his eyeball level,
02:17and saying, what are we going to get from Wimby tonight?
02:19Are we going to get that 20-25 shot performance?
02:21Are we going to get that domination in the paint?
02:23He looked a little bit tired last game.
02:25I know that's been well-documented and talked about, that he looked a little bit labored in stretches.
02:30This is the most he's played in the entire season.
02:33In the regular season, he barely got over the 32-33 minute mark,
02:37and he's been playing that in every single game of the postseason because they need him out on the court.
02:42And this is a moment where you can look that man in the eyes and say, listen, Big Dog,
02:45we need you to be great in this game.
02:47We need you to come out aggressive from the very start.
02:49And a lot of my plays kind of lean into the fact that I think that Wimby will rise to
02:53that occasion.
02:54And again, I think the Spurs get the job done tonight and we get seven games,
02:58but I would not be shocked whatsoever if the defending champs come in there,
03:01handle business on the road, and we don't even get a game seven.
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