Yankees Loss and Upcoming Subway Series

It's the Mike Frances a Podcast on the Bet Rivers Network. Hello again, everybody, and welcome to the Mike Francesa Podcast, part of the Bet Rivers Network, coming to you after game two of the Knicks and the Sixers , a hard-fought back and forth . Uh tough game, but a game that the Knicks now take a uh commanding two-nothing lead as they hit ready to hit Philadelphia. We'll see what Embiid is going to do in the series. As I told you when the series started, I thought the Knicks would win, like everybody else did. No big deal there. You were a heavy, heavy favorite. But the number of games would be dependent on what exactly the Sixers could get out of uh Embi you don't know when he's gonna play, you don't know in a game how many minutes he's gonna play. You just never know almost moment to moment with him. Despite how good he is, you just don't know minute to minute. And tonight uh the Sixers came out with a very, very good effort. I thought they they played very hard. I thought except for their turnovers which were very sloppy and were some of them unforced and throwing the ball across the middle uh and giving the Knicks easy transition baskets. Uh other than that, I thought they did really well. Uh Maxie, George, Edgecombe did what they had to do. Ubre, I thought, played for him incredibly well . Uh off the bench, Barlow, I thought played well, Grimes played well, even Bona played well at times. I mean, so they they got a good performance. They ran out of gas. I mean, that's what it came down to. The shots that were falling, just look at what their numbers were throughout the game. Look what they were from three in the first quarter. They were red hot. At the half, they were red hot. After three quarters, they were still very representative. And then in the fourth quarter , they went ice cold and wound up only shooting thirty-eight percent from three. Uh the shots stopped dropping. They only scored twelve points in the fourth quarter . Uh and the Knicks go on to a 108-102 win as they just wear him down. I mean, that that was more than anything else. I mean, George got off red hot with 11 points in the first quarter. Uh cooled off in the second half . Maxie, who put on a show in the second quarter , uh cooled off. They all cooled off. And that's what it came down to. And those shots that were falling didn't fall down the stretch and you know that Brunson's gonna make baskets. Uh the other thing that the Knicks got tonight was another terrific performance from uh OG , who has really been their best player. I mean, Brunson's had some scoring spree, but day in, day out, OG's been their best player in the playoffs. He's played like an all-pro in the playoffs. Uh the Knicks got a good game out of bridges. I mean, that's alive, pulses ticking, heart speeding, a game out of bridges, eighteen points, some good defense, five rebounds, some uh a big basket that uh put them up six um towns in foul trouble that silly foul he got to start the second quarter was just ridiculous I mean to start the third quarter was just ridiculous his third. Uh, especially when he's not playing against anybody offensively, makes no sense to get that kind of cheap foul. Um, but in the 27 minutes he played, he put up 20 points and 10 rebounds. They couldn't have seven assists, so his all around game was very, very good. Um solid game from Brunson, terrific game from OG, terrific game from Bridges, solid game from Towns, and etc. etc. And away you go. And uh the Knicks go on to a hard fought one oh two one oh eight one oh two victory and you look, Philly scores thirty three points in the first quarter, they score twenty nine in the second quarter, they score twenty eight in the third quarter. They scored 12 poin ts. 12 points in the fourth quarter. And that's what it came down to. Uh the Knicks didn't get to the foul line in the fourth quarter. And Philly missed too many foul shots. I mean, for my liking, if I'm Philly, I missed too many foul shots. Twenty one of twenty-eight is too many. Um but the turnovers, eighteen turnovers in the game. Many of them led to easy baskets. Uh and again, I thought a lot of their guys really gave you a yeoman's effort, a very, very good effort. I mean if I was Nurse who and we send our condolences to him, it's a it's obviously coaching with a very heavy heart. Anyone who's ever lost a brother? And I have knows the pain of it. And obviously he was very close to his brother. He's gone back and forth. He's a religious man by nature. Uh so we send our prayers and condolences to him as he has to deal with that through the series . And now we get ready to change scenes. You know, we can go by the old adage that the series doesn't start till somebody loses a home game. But the bottom line is the Knicks are the better team . It doesn't sound like Mbi can dance every dance. And without that, they don't have enough uh to put a real serious scare uh into the Knicks who should advance and now find themselves up to zip and have to be happy that the way they're playing overall, the way their core units playing defensively, and the fact that Bridges has regained form and return to the fold and is not playing is not floating around in the ether somewhere outside the basketball community of the team. He is now part of it. He is right in the middle of it. And you know, when you're going to get 18 points out of him, it'll always come on economical shooting tonight, nine for 13 from the floor. See, the one thing about he and OG is when they score, and even towns, when they score, they usually score a high percentage from the field. OG 's shooting insane postseason numbers. Insane both from two and from three. Towns tonight, six of eight from the floor, and then they had seven to nine from the foul line . Um and then Bridges nine for thirteen from the floor, finishing off drives, hitting the jumper, doing the things that uh you want him to do. You know he's always going to play solid D, he's gonna play smart D. That's the way he is. So the Knicks go on to a uh very uh well earned hard fort . Uh you felt confident that the way things were going, that they would be able to answer in the fourth quarter. I think Philly did everything well. I thought Barlow defended uh Brunson well. I thought that uh they tried to double team Brunson at times to get the ball out of his hands well. The bottom line is though he's gonna get in the lane and make shots. He's gonna get to the foul line. He did. Uh he gets to the foul line eight times and makes seven. Towns gets to the foul line nine times, makes make seven. Uh those are killers. Absolute killers. Um and although the Knicks didn't have a robust game from three, seven to twenty-six , Philly's ice-cold fourth quarter brought everything back in where the shots just started hitting front rim, got tired. Uh George wound up uh seven of eighteen. He opened red hot. I think he made his first three threes. Um I think they made seven of ten freeze. Their first ten, they made seven. Uber made a couple. George had three. Uh George wound up with five for the game, but he wound up five for thir teen. He missed a lot down the stretch. Uh Maxie was one for six for three. Uh Edgecomb missed some shots down the stretch. Hey, these guys gave you, I mean Maxie played 46 minutes. George played 42 minutes, these guys played hard. Uber played 39 minutes, plays both ends of the floor. Uh you know, these guys played major minutes, they did the best they could do, and they put forth a very good effort, but it was sh they fell short. 108, 102. So the Knicks, as we said, find themselves up two games to love as the scene shifts to Philadelphia and who knows? I don't you know, listen , when you go into these series, you never know what's going to go on with embiat you know that's that that's the story of Embiid's career brilliance and long absences I mean that is that is his career I mean plus with him you just don't know trip to trip, you know, he gets hit in the knee. Now he's hurt. He gets he's on the sideline and his side hurts, his back hurts, his arm hurts. I mean he's always something hurts. I mean, that's just the way he is. He's uh no one can can uh take anything away from his gifts. He has great skills, but he also uh can't stay on the floor. And part of greatness is staying on the floor. That's part of it is showing up, is being there. You know, uh it's plagued some guys and kept them from ultimate greatness. I mean Bill Walton I've talked about many times a favorite of mine, one of the great if you look at him in terms of overall talent and overall ability to play the center position and every facet of the center position. Problem is he never played. His gaps in his career were years long. When he was healthy, he was special. He was all world, but it didn't happen very often once he got to the pros. And I mean the guy is never ever healthy and it impacts this team dramatically. But I thought tonight uh nurse had to be very, very happy with what he got out of his team. Uh they did a very good job. And the Knicks responded in a grinded out game . You know, they find out no Mitch Robinson before the game, which impacts them a little bit . Um they have to play some guys they don't really want to play, but that happens . They got they withstood all the different runs from Philly. They withstood all the different, you know, George getting hot, then Maxie getting hot, and then Uber making threes and all the different things that happened tonight. And they were able to wear them down. And that's what they did. They wore him down and wore him out in the fourth quarter, uh, winning the fourth quarter by a uh grand total of I believe nineteen to twelve. Nineteen to twelve. Uh and that was enough to give them a six-point victory. So uh they went into the third quarter trailing by a point , and they wind up winning by six as heavy favorites, but that was the case once Embiid was out of the game. The game went from six and a half point favorites to ten and a half point favorites for the Knicks, but who cares about that? They're up two games to love as they try to move into the Eastern Conference Finals and await the winners of the uh Cleveland uh Detroit series and as I said last uh before that series started and then I wasn't on after the game last night you watch Cleveland and you think you want to shake them and say, Hey guys, this is not January tenth . This is not December fifteenth. This is the playoffs. You guys realize that? Hey, you understand it's the playoffs, right you wonder where the combined concentrated effort is from that team a team is we know they have ability but and I'm not a hardened guy I never have been. I don' liket Harden. Don't want Harden on my team ever . And I I think as soon as anybody gets them, they want to get rid of them. But the bottom line is I just don't get what's up with that team. I really don't. You know, I I just I don't get what's up. They play with this just lackada isical, almost I don't care style, which is just hard to fathom in the postseason . And it's going to prove costly to the hierarchy there. I don't think there's any question about it because, you know, last year they had such an amazing season and such a terrible postseason . And then this year, they didn't have the same regular season. They had their moments. They win I don't remember what they won, fifty-two, fifty-three games, something like that. Um but they weren't the same team. They had injuries, they had chang es, made changes, made trades, but something's missing. Something's dramatically missing from that team. Spurs are playing right now in game two after losing game one, so you would expect a huge effort out of them. You saw that Popovich even was brought into the fold to help preparation. I know that doesn't make other people look good, but the bottom line is he's Popovich. I mean, so, you know, he he's like it's like bringing Riley into the fold if you're, you know, somewhere where he's involved. I mean, you know, no one takes it as a slight. So that's just the way it is. But you would expect a big effort out of the Spurs in game two. Right now, they just have a five-point lead in the first quarter. They just got on the way there. But the Knicks get the win that they have to get. They get a uh they get a balanced effort . They get a uh good performance all the way around. You know, 26 out of Brun Brunson, 24 out of OG, 20 out of Towns and uh foul plague minutes, 18 out of bridges, which is a big positive. The bench kicked in here and there, nothing great, but you know, kicked in. Clarkson threw in six points when he got in the game. Um the Biggs got in there and committed a lot of fouls in short order. Uh, but the Knicks did what they had to do when the game was on the line, and now they go to Philly up two games to love. So they are in a very, very solid position . Um in this series, hey, you want to make as fast work of these series? Now, I'm sure Philly's gonna have a game here in the next two . It's gonna be a game here where Empete's gonna show up, he's gonna get 35 and 15, he's gonna foul out the front line, he's gonna have one of those games and you're gonna say, Wow, this guy's just a monster, and then the next game he's gonna get two points and not play. I mean that's just the way it is. So he's gonna have one of those moments. I figure this is gonna be a game five in the series. Uh but the way it looks right now , that might be it as far as the series goes, and then it's on to the conference finals, and you can start to dream the dream of uh getting to an NBA uh finals where I mean unless something very unusual happens, Oklahoma City will be awaiting, trying to put another jewel in their crowns. So I mean that will be the case. And hey, all you can do is get there and worry about it when you get there. But right now , the Knicks are in the fast lane . You know, they're in the left lane and they're cruising right along. They got the top down, they got their sunglasses on and they're cruising right along towards the NBA finals. And uh it doesn't look like they're gonna get derailed anytime soon, the way things are going. So hey, things have a way of changing real quickly in the postseason with injuries and with weird things happening, but right now things look very , very good . Um you can pinch yourself on a rare Yankee loss tonight. You know it's amazing . I said to someone today, I said, you know, they were saying, oh Yankees, I just unbelievable I said, yeah, but of all these pitching today. And you know, there was a guy in the old days, some of you Yankee fans may never heard of him, whose nickname was the Yankee Killer . His name was Frank Larry. And he was known as the Yankee Killer. Well, you know, the guy who seems to be the modern uh Yankee killer is Valdi, he just pitches, it seems like he pitches well against the Yankees every time he sees them, and it doesn't matter how hot they are. Tonight, look at the game he pitches. I mean, unbelievable. And you're talking about a team that was red hot. I mean blazing hot. And he goes out there. And I know George had a home run , but uh he goes out there and throws eight innings eight innings gives up three hits, strikes out eight , to even his record at four and four. I mean, he throws 101 pitches, he goes eight innings, he gives up three hits, he gives up one run, he gives up the judge home run in the sixth inning, and he cruises to a matter-of-fact win over the bombers. I mean, uh it's amazing. Val di just throws it seems like Laley just throws his glove out there and the Yankee bats go cold. I mean, that's Yankees will finish up tomorrow afternoon. I think I don't know if it's weather is I know it's raining out there now. I don't know if the weather is tomorrow. I know the Mets are playing uh tomorrow, I think. Let's see what it says. Thursday. Tomorrow the Yanks are scheduled to play a day game. Uh there's eighty five percent chance of rain tomorrow, so we'll see what happens there. Uh but the bottom line is they've been red hot at twenty five and twelve after the loss this evening. A very, very rare loss of late uh ends the winning streak. I see the uh I know that Soto Homer hit a bomb in the first inning . I mean, how they're playing there is ridiculous. You saw the snow on the field. You saw they got the snow off the field. They said the game time temperature was going to be like 38 degrees. At least it wasn't that windy, but like 38 degrees. I mean, crazy. That's not baseball weather. And I'll tell you this. Since they started the season in March , and I've been obviously laid up for a couple of weeks, obviously uh convalescing here with my knee. Um so I've watched everything. The weather for the baseball has just been awful. And let's be honest. I talked to the guy who plants my flowers here at the house and he says, we don't plant till after Mother's Day. We don't plant the the summer flowers till after Mother's Day because we don't trust it. We could get cold snap any time until Mother's Day. Now Mother's Day is Sunday. Second week in May. You expect after that that the weather's going to be warm, but let's be honest. Next thing you'll do is flip the switch and it'll be 82 degrees every day. There's no spring. We have no spring . March stinks. April stinks. It's as warm in February as it is in April. Uh the weather's dreadful here until the second week in May. And then the weather will be beautiful uh the rest of the way. So it'll make a turn uh sometime probably after this weekend, which is uh Mother's Day coming up. And but the weather it's so hard to play baseball in that weather. I baseball's a game you want to play in 85 degrees. It's just it's just what it is. It's a summer game. It's not it's not made for these terrible conditions. I know they want to spread the season out. I understand what they're trying to do. But it just makes for so many terrible starts and so many really, I I think it plays a big role. I really do in injuries and in everything else. I I I really do. Uh and the weather has just not been good. And then you watch with them playing in Colorado and you see snow on the ground and you're like, it's crazy. It's May and the snow on the ground. Well, sorry Denver is, but just crazy . And you know, I know we all have a soft spot for the Phillies with Manning Lee at manager, um, but they just continue one again today as they continue to roll along uh for Donnie baseball. So uh you talk about what impact you can get . No one's blaming the manager. We know he was a good manager. He proved he was a good manager. He's a good man. He's a good baseball man. He handled everything terrifically. He's proved he can win there. It's on the players, it's not on him. But sometimes a change . Now I understand they got people back too . And they got Wheeler back and stuff like that. But sometimes the change just makes a big difference. And here, look at what's going on since he's taken over as manager. They were right back, they were right back in it. I mean , now Atlanta's got themselves a nice start, no question about it. But Philly's in second place now . They were in last place. They were behind the Mets . They now are in second place. They still have games to make up. Yeah, they're eight back in the loss column, because Atlanta's twenty six and twelve with the best record in baseball. I understand that. But Philly now is only three games under five hundred . They've won four in a row. They've won eight of their last ten. They've done an incredible job and you know, I look every day to see if they won just because of Donnie being there, more than anything else. So sometimes it does make it sometimes it just does jumpstart a team . We'll see. As for the Mets, we'll see how that unfolds. Uh with the days and we can't come next week. We'll be an interesting week. Hopefully the weather's okay. As the Mets come home and take on the Tigers, and we know what's going on with their star pitcher. And then the Yankees . And there are always different th themes . Well this year the theme is very easy. The Yankees come in and unless something strange happens between then and you know, now and then, and it's only a week , which is un unlikely, the Yankees are gonna come in playing very, very good, top heavy winning baseball . And the Mets are going to have something to prove. And that series is going to be an incredible opportunity for the Met fans, for the Mets, for the Met fans, for the Mets to energize their franchise in front of the fans. To turn around and win that series against the Yankees would be such a big deal for the Mets right now. Does it mean anything to the Yankees? No. It doesn't. They're riding high, they're in first place, they're playing great, they're hitting a million home runs. We all we know it. But it's always the thing about the subway series is and I'm you know I love it . And City Field's been empty. It will be full those three days, and that's why that thing is always the best because it will fill the ballpark no matter what . And it always takes on a theme based on what this season presents. And for this year , it's not hey, we're on equal footing or we're both trying to get to the same place. It's now we have to prove we can play against them. We can't let them come in here and smack us all over the ballpark , shut us down offensively, smack home runs all over the ballpark and make us look like fools . It's a grand opportunity for the Mets . Looking ahead, a grand opportunity for the Mets . And that will come your way next weekend . As the Yankees will invade after the Tigers. So the Mets uh One more day in Colorado. Right now they lead I think they still lead one nothing. Last I saw. They will play tomorrow in the afternoon. So they should be able to get that game in, I would think. Then uh the Yankees uh Mets will be in Arizona this weekend, the Yankees will be in Milwaukee and then the Mets will come home take on the Tigers and get ready for get ready for the uh the big bombers on the weekend and like I said that should be that should be a lot of fun starting on Friday night . Saturday is let me see if it's a day or a night game. It is a night game, 7-15. And then of course, a Sunday afternoon game. So Friday night, Saturday night, Saturday, the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth uh at City Field, and that will be a grand , grand opportunity for the Mets to prove something, not just to themselves, but to the city and to their fan base. Give their fan base a reason to believe . You know, play okay going into those games, play winning baseball by the numbers going into those games, and then have a big weekend against the mighty Bronx farmers who were shut down tonight by a familiar face at least for one night . So the Knicks up two zip as the scene changes. I would think MB would play games, even who the heck knows. I mean, minute by minute with him. But they're up to zip halfway home. We'll see you later. Thanks for listening to the Mike Francesa Podcast on the Bet Rivers Network .