The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Knicks Stay Alive With Rob Mahoney and Joe House, Plus NFL Offseason Intrigue Rankings With Albert Breer
Fri, 30 May 2025
Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House and Rob Mahoney to react to the Knicks winning Game 5 in New York to push their ECF series against the Pacers to Game 6 (2:30). Then, they discuss OKC eliminating the Timberwolves in the WCF, what an OKC-Pacers Finals would look like, and SGA’s scoring ability (44:35). Finally, Albert Breer joins to talk about NFL offseason subplots (01:07:36). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Joe House, Rob Mahoney, and Albert Breer Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Get anything delivered on Uber Eats. www.ubereats.com The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened in Game 5 between the Knicks and Pacers?
It's the Bill Simmons Podcast. We are part of the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find the Rewatchables, a great podcast. We did Heaven Can Wait. We wrapped up Big Ass 70s Month on Monday. You can find that podcast on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. You can also find it as a video podcast on Spotify. We already have next week's movie that we're doing. We needed Kyle Branagh.
He hadn't been on in two months and we needed to do an action movie. And naturally, it led us to the Steven Seagal movie that we haven't done yet, that we have to do. Out for Justice. The most important Steven Seagal movie in the catalog. That will be coming Monday. There will be some laughs. So you have the whole weekend to watch it. FanDuel, we did Taylor Fade this week and it actually hit.
Jalen Brunson over 30 and a half. So you can check out. They have same game parlay stuff for this weekend that you can check out on FanDuel. sports book. So coming up, I went live after game five Pacers Knicks with Rob Mahoney and Joe House and then brought in Albert Breer to talk about all the NFL stuff that's happened over the last month since the draft.
Things you might have missed if your head was buried in the NBA playoffs. So that's all next. We'll take a break. We'll bring in Pearl Jam and then Joe House and Rob Mahoney all next.
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Starting the BS podcast here with Rob Mahoney and Joe House. Are we sober house? Are we buzzed? Where are we? Late night house.
Late night house.
Let's see what the cards give us. Groggy, like a little letting it loose house. Unlike Andrew Nembhard today. We're doing this live on YouTube. I thought this was going to be an awesome game today. And New York had other ideas. A couple of the Pacers. Had other ideas. Did New York figure anything out today, Mahoney? Or did Indiana just suck?
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Chapter 2: How did the Knicks' defense impact the Pacers' offense?
Mostly, they just played with actual intensity, especially on the perimeter, to the point that it did feel like the Pacers kind of forgot for a while that they were allowed to move into the direction of the basket. Like, it was all side-to-side. It was all handoffs up top. Once they, you know, Ben Mathurin came in and decided to cut and they decided to drive a little more, the game changed a bit.
But I thought the Knicks perimeter defense pressured them out of a lot of their stuff. And they deserve a lot of credit for that.
What'd you think, Cass? the Knicks did the thing that's most important in basketball, which is make the shots. They started off by the making of the shots in the first quarter, and that had the effect of keeping the Pacers from running. So we had two quarters from the Pacers where they scored less than 25 points.
They scored 45 points in the whole first half, 23 points first quarter, 22 points second quarter, because the Knicks did the making of the baskets, Bill Simmons. And Indiana stunk.
Not a good game for them.
It's pretty tough when Ben Matherin saves you from having like a 75-point game, which is where we're headed. And the stats reflect how bad it was, but it was even worse watching it. Neesmith was one for eight. He only played 15 minutes, by the way.
Yeah, they seemed like they were limiting him with that angle, probably. And that, I mean, Jalen Brunson feasts every minute that Neesmith isn't on the floor.
Yeah, and once they kind of realized maybe the game was a little behind them, they started to be a little more careful. Nembhard was three for eight. It felt worse. Three turnovers. Turner... 24 minutes, 5 points, 4 turnovers, and a couple of really just awkward offensive moments 25 feet from the basket where he's trying to dribble against Mitchell Robinson.
There was one time he just kind of fell out of bounds. I thought the biggest thing the Knicks did today, other than pressure Halliburton and just make it more difficult for him on defense, was they felt like they were attacking Myles Turner, Rob. Yeah. Like, oh, you're going to have the bomb coming at you.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the Knicks' win for the Eastern Conference Finals?
And then there's times where it looks like one of his legs is like a dramatically different length than the other. And he can't quite move in any kind of like fluid manner. They brought that side out of him. to the point that Mitchell Robinson at some points was pressuring Miles Turner up to half court. They just wouldn't let him move at all, much less get into that little handoff game.
Yeah, it's weird. The Miles Turner free agency tape is going to have to be a carefully edited 20-minute highlight tape house, but I think the 20-minute highlight tape will be excellent.
it can't have anything to do with Carl Anthony towns. I mean, I think cat has, has found the, the opposing center that he's most comfortable with in the entire NBA. And it's a version of cat, you know, that man going to the rim, uh, with ferocity, relentless ferocity, and making himself into a true New York Knick.
You could see the crowd get super fired up every time he went to the rack and banged Turner out of the way and got his. And really, he and Brunson set the tone in the first quarter with that intensity that they brought, and they controlled the flow of the game in the first quarter And it was weird that the Pacers didn't really have any kind of retaliation.
I mean, the closest we got was that 10 points with four minutes left in the third quarter. Yeah. And then they kind of got there again in the fourth quarter. But really, they just never got there, Mahoney.
Yeah, but to that point with Cat, it was really telling that this series for him has become not really a post-up series, not really a three-point shooting series. It is drive past Myles Turner, drive past Pascal Siakam. Pacers have nobody who can stay in front of him so long as Cat can stay out of foul trouble. Granted, he had about three or four dumb fouls in this game.
I think he easily could have been called for five or six. A shove here or there that just didn't get whistled. And maybe this game is very, very different. But he definitely showed up. Brunson definitely showed up. Those guys had to deliver. And the depth... also did. Like, honestly, just might be the best Landry Shamit playoff run we've ever seen from him.
Has there been a Landry Shamit playoff run? This is the thing.
He tends to be the guy who comes into the playoffs and just immediately disappears. Like, way too small, gets boxed out of series, too streaky a shooter to really make a difference. This guy was like freezing TJ McConnell in the lane, like killed dribble on the baseline, completely stalling out the Pacers offense.
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Chapter 4: What are the key takeaways from the discussion on Carl Anthony Towns?
McConnell was another one who sucked the night. Um, the really everybody in the Pacers, you look through bathroom has 23 points and they scored 94 as a team. That's pretty rough. Um,
The Towns piece of it, I still feel like anytime a team isn't just completely attacking him on defense house, especially once he gets to four fouls, I would just go at him every play because I just feel like law of averages, he's just going to foul somebody. It was funny to hear Van Gundy on this three-man team we had tonight. And we've had all through the playoffs and both conferences.
Just poor Kevin Harlan. His usage rate is all-time low. He's basically like Mikael Bridges in those games when he has six shots in 48 minutes. But it was funny to hear Van Gundy just openly saying, like, they shouldn't put Towns back in. He's just crazy enough to get a foul here. Because I thought the same thing. 0.6 seconds left. It's like just enough time for him to foul somebody on a pick.
But for the most part, I think this series has been a win for him, House.
An enormous win. An all-time win. I mean, in the same way that we were observing Julius Randall, you know, kind of a rebranding for himself by the excellent performance he had for the Timberwolves in the West.
Until recently. Until recently.
I know, but look, for the most part, who saw that coming, right? And you had to do some research. You had to go back into your basketball reference Bill Simmons database to compare him to some greats. The 19-9, yeah.
Him and Elgin Baylor. Him and the greats.
You had to do that. He made you do that. Julius Randle made you do that.
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Chapter 5: How does the Knicks' roster compare to other teams in the East?
But Towns, also, this is like a version of Towns that I don't think anybody could say, we've seen this from Carl Anthony Towns in the playoffs. Like, this is the Eastern Conference Finals, for Christ's sakes. It's very impressive to me.
I like how hard he's playing. That's the big thing for me is, like, whatever, the stats are going to come and go, the shots are going to come and go. But he really seems like... he fully gives a shit, which I think is... And I felt that way last year with him too in the Western Finals too. So we've at least gotten over that hump with Mahoney.
I think he's had great responses, right? It's like he's been embarrassed a couple times in this series, especially defensively, like we were just talking about. Played off the floor in fourth quarters, taken out of the rotation for critical stretches, like Mitchell Robinson kind of taking his spot a couple times. And then you get a huge response in crunch time.
Then you get this response to the Indiana win. I don't know that you can ask a lot more of Towns than this. He's on a bad knee right now, and he's still driving all that much. He's still relatively holding up defensively, again, give or take all the fouls. And credit to him, too, gets to kind of punch it through with that final possession before the Pacers took everybody out.
It was like Indiana couldn't pull down a defensive rebound. Josh Hart gets it, reroutes it to Towns, pump fake, drive, finish over Matherin, shrug off everybody. We're going home. He deserves that kind of moment with the series he's had.
Yeah, and the Knicks were dying to let the Pacers back in the game in the third quarter, and the Pacers weren't. But there was like a six-minute stretch where it just felt like the ball was flying around off everybody. It's funny, you mentioned the Towns playing with a bad knee. Not sure how bad the knee was because it felt like he was doing a lot of stuff out there. That's true.
I had the hockey game on the smaller TV as I was watching the basketball and I was just thinking how funny it is. You're at the playoff basketball game and Carl Towns cutting it out with a sore knee and then you go to the hockey game and guys, they have just divots in the side of their heads. They're playing with just broken hands or broken orbital bones.
It's just funny how different the sports are, House.
And classic Tibbs. I mean, with the knee, he had the most minutes of any Nick on the floor, 36 minutes. And he got the most attempts up, 20 attempts. So, you know, what a warrior.
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Chapter 6: What are the predictions for the upcoming NFL offseason?
And the Pacers seem super happy to give them as many as you want. It's a weird thing for me. I agree that Tibbs coached a good game tonight. I also think it was reprehensible that he didn't ever try to figure out how to use his bench during the season.
I remember doing a podcast after that Knicks Celtic game in Boston in like February where he's just playing those guys huge minutes in this game that ultimately they're going to be the three-seater, the four-seater. It's like, what are you doing? And I think the Knicks fans in my life, they're just apoplectic that it took until this series to
Losing game one to then now experiment with all these different lineups and lineups that really haven't played together all season. But in a way, better late than never, I guess, because it's definitely helped them. I don't know. We've seen Shamit for a few seasons here. I refuse to believe he's like a late bloomer as a playoff asset.
There's been a bunch of teams that have given up on Shamit, just for the record.
But he's out there. And again, these lineups are lineups that I would never choose to put on the floor in a must-win playoff game. Lineups that should not work, that should not make sense. But I think it speaks to the fact that New York's needs right now are less for explosive offense and more for where are they getting that defensive intensity?
Who are the guys who are really going to pressure, who are really going to play up? And Wright and Shaman have both done that. McBride always does that. And playing those three guys together shouldn't be a thing, but it's a thing. And it's working in this series.
Yeah, and make Indiana turn the ball over and make Halliburton not as comfortable, which they managed to do too. Indiana had 20 turnovers tonight. The Knicks were out-rebounding them by 10 for most of the game, and that evened out a little bit. But I guess from the Knicks' side, they were 28% from three, and they won handily. Good sign for them.
From the Pacers' side, they had 20 turnovers, and it still felt like they were going to make a run, even with five minutes left, with literally nobody playing well except Matherin. I was like, ah, I still feel like they might get going here. It was a bad Halliburton game. Yeah.
you know, a lot of smoke, including on this podcast and all of the ringer podcasts about the big leap he was taking and how great he was playing. And it just felt like he was flustered from the get-go with all the pressure. My guess is that he'll be fine in game six.
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Chapter 7: Who are the standout players in the playoffs so far?
I mean, and that this is one of those, I looked at the tape. I can't believe how bad I was. I'm going to do this, this, this, and this, and it will be a different Albert would be my guess.
He was the making the big leap and then he took the big shit. And that happens sometimes. I mean, we saw SGA, the MVP of the league in what was a game three, you know, lay a big fat egg. It happens. The good players.
When you start talking about like top 20 guys, top 15 guys, top 10 guys, once we go higher up the list, What separates the top five, top seven guys, like you noticed that one SGA game when he wasn't very good in game three. But for the most part, every single playoff game, he's been between 30 and 38 a game. Yeah. And consistently scoring and consistently getting his shot.
And you just always know you can count on him. You know, when you go through all the best guys in the league, that's usually in place, which is why even with somebody like Edwards, people are so disappointed that Oh, what happened to him in second half of game four? Why did he seem so comfortable? Because he's being held to a certain standard.
I feel like Halliburton had at least was knocking on the door of that level. So for him to suck tonight is just like, that's not great. And now he's going to take it tomorrow on the shows. There's going to be a lot of, they need Tyrese Halliburton to step up. He's going to be the step up guy tomorrow. Who was that? Who's the step up guy heading in?
No, who was the voice you just did?
That was my generic ESPN voice.
It was all a collage of the voices. All, everyone, every voice.
I want them to have a segment called step up where they just, each of them just screams at the TV that somebody needs to step up. And then at the end of the segment, they all just look at each other and they tell each other to step up. Well,
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Chapter 8: What is the significance of Tyrese Halliburton's performance?
World leaders. Who needs to step up?
The new Pope. Anybody.
Democrats need to step up!
What an idea.
They definitely actually do need to step up. But... Paramount Plus's main screen needs to step up because I can't find Mission Impossible.
Whoever's doing the UI on those things definitely needs to step up. It's a disgrace.
Well, anyway, I think Tyrese... But long story short, Tyrese Halliburton might need to step up.
Yes. There's a version of a Tyrese Halliburton game where he shoots seven times and it's still awesome. He's done that before plenty of times. This was not that. I think it was distressing... how little he was even looking at the rim. And the times where even he would turn the corner on the Knicks defense.
And it's just like, it looks like he's waiting for the breakdown to make the easy pass for the layup that, frankly, has been there for the last three games or so. But if you're that guy, if you're a top 20 guy, you are the breakdown. That's your job to create that and to capitalize on it.
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