Hour 2: Stan Van Gundy On The NBA Finals
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz- 1,108 views
- 1 Oct 2020
Dan Le Batard and Stugotz talk to Stan Van Gundy about the NBA Finals and of course, his Twitter. Plus, the Miami Marlins have a house money game in this 3-game series vs the Cubs and we update the polls.
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This is the eleventh hour. Sure, this still got Sparkasse. We will get to Christine Lacy in a second, but can you explain to me in the audience, please, who got why during the break you were arguing with a peloton. They have this I think it was NordicTrack or peloton.
I'm not certain. But that doesn't happen where two people first off, any time you see any one of these exercise bikes, they're in a big corner apartment in a high rise in New York City somewhere, which is annoying, which suggests you have to have money to afford. These things are in these things that I guess you do. But there is no scenario where a man and a woman are getting in two separate apartments, separate buildings, getting on their bikes at the exact same time, staring each other down, racing each other and then going their separate ways and never, ever meeting.
It does not happen. Dan, I don't know why it infuriates me, but it does.
Well, I think you've never been on a peloton like I think that's how Peloton works. And the fact that you don't know the difference between a Nordic track and a peloton suggests you're not quite informed on how this works. Now, maybe the people aren't as beautiful as they were in this commercial, but if I look that good, I never work out so well. But they look that good because they never. Christine, you were saying.
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Speaking of things I'm constantly waiting for to just end, here's Dan and say, wow, very good laugh.
Stan Van Gundy with us. He is great. You heard him during the playoffs, TBS, TNT analyst. We enjoy his company and his basketball analysis is better than most that we have around here, all that we have around here. What are you laughing about?
Just the thought. I just had a visual stand on a pallet on the corner apartment in the city.
How does make you laugh and how do you feel about Pelletised? Yeah, I've never been on a telethon.
Yeah, that's not going to happen. I do love him racing, Jeff, and then being competitive. What did you see last night that you thought was interesting?
Well, I thought the Lakers sighs overwhelmed Miami more than I thought. They had eight block shots. I thought even before he got the injury in the third quarter, the size really gave them Adebayo a lot of problems. He was struggling to to finish on shots that he normally makes. And they and they got six teams, the Lakers at sixteen second chance points on them on the boards. That to me was just sort of the overriding theme. Look, I think the three point shooting part of it will turn around the heat for some reason over the last six games of that sort of fallen apart from three point range.
You've got to think that they'll come back to making some threes and the Lakers are just not that good. A three point shooting team and had a great night last night. But I don't think that the Lakers are going to get shorter. Yeah, I was going to say I don't. How do you fix that? Well, you know, look, I think Miami, you know, the score was what it was, but Miami did a great job of the best I've seen actually in the playoffs of breaking down the Laker defense, getting into the paint and then either finishing or making plays out of that.
They had forty six points in the paint and their first fourteen points and started more from drives into the paint, either being finished or to somebody else or kicked out four, three. So I thought that they did a good job there and they're going to have to continue to do that. At least they have to make three point shots. They were second in the league during the season. Thirty eight percent, the first ten games of the playoffs this year.
They shot thirty nine percent. And over the last six games they've shot thirty percent. And that's even including a good game six against Boston. So it's been a disaster for them from three point range, and that's a huge part of their game. And then the overriding thing is the injuries. I mean, going into last night, Dragic was the leading scorer on the team in the playoffs. And even early in the game, you could see he was having great success getting into the paint he was getting wherever he wanted to go to either score, make plays.
If he's out, which it sounded like is a good possibility, then that's a major blow to the heat. And and both Butler and Adebayo or or, you know, hobbled a little bit in various ways. They can't afford that. I picked the heat to win, which was probably the death knell for them anyway, you know, but if they're not healthy, then they don't have any chance. Look, the positive side, though, with Dragic being out, Kendrick Cannon, who had a great regular season and was put on the shelf in the conference finals, got into a little bit of a rhythm last night.
So obviously if Dragic is out he stands to get a lot of time and he was able to gain a little confidence and get some rhythm last night. So. So that'll be helpful.
I know Stan Van Gundy with us here on ESPN Radio and NBA TV. Stan, have you seen a player like Anthony Davis? Is there a comparison? You know, probably not. Not directly. Again, the size I mean, it just created so much of a problem for Miami, so they started the game double teaming him and James when they were in the post. And because the leg, which I thought was a good decision. Now, I don't think they were very active in their double teams.
I'm sure that's something that Erik Spoelstra is talking to them about today. They were like perfunctory double teams. They didn't really get pressure on anybody. But the Lakers did a great job playing out of it and they were knocking down threes. So then. They open the second half trying to play straight up on both Davis and James and Davis, able to just face up and shoot over Bam easily, he's got so much size and length on him. And then LeBron James was just able to go in the MidCoast, face up Jimmy Butler and go right by.
He's just a bigger, stronger player, Jim. He's a tough guy and a good defender. He's just not as big as LeBron James. So, you know the size of both of those guys and then Davis, his ability to shoot the ball. The question was, I know a player like, you know, not directly, but I think guys with size that would shoot the ball. Kevin Durant, who plays a little differently, but Anthony Davis, who can go inside now, I mean, those guys are really, really, really difficult to stop it, to make or miss for those guys.
When Derrick Jones Junior and Duncan Robinson were on LeBron James, I thought they were both going to get stuck in his butt crack.
Well, listen, I mean, here here's the hard part, I think, for the for the heat, right? So dunking, Rob, and when you when you have to go, injuries force you to go down into your bench a little bit more. And Duncan Robinson, a great offensive player, really good shooter. He's improved defensively. But when he gets caught on switches on pick and rolls on LeBron, obviously, like you can't have a much bigger mismatch than that.
And then the Lakers are a great defensive team. So if you're going to play guys like Derrick Jones Junior, Solomon Hill, guys like that, how do you score? I mean, it's hard enough to score on the Lakers, but then if you're going to try to play four on five at the offensive end of the floor, it just gets very difficult. So the heat need their starters. Tyler Hero, Kinneret Cannon. Now, if he's going to get more minutes, you know, in a probably a smaller dose of Andre Iguodala, they need all those guys to play well because those guys can play some at both ends of the floor.
But Robinson gets played off the floor a little bit himself. So it's not easy for them because those one way guys are not going to get it done.
Stan Van Gundy has been very active and recently angry on Twitter. I want to get him to talk about some of his tweets. We'll do that. Do you have another segment in You Stand? Can you join us for one more segment to talk about some of the things you've been doing on Twitter here?
I can. All right. He's an NBA analyst, TNT and NBA TV. He's as good as it gets covering basketball. He will come back with us in a second. Studies have shown that the average human attention span is eight seconds. That means you're more easily distracted than you might think. And when you're driving, you'll be glad the Volvo 60 60 SUV is thinking about safety even when you're not. It's equipped with advanced safety features that can help prevent accidents before they happen, like the city safety system that uses cameras and radar to detect pedestrians and cyclists and can automatically apply the brakes if you don't, because sometimes the moments that don't happen are the ones that matter most.
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So, Stan, as you see everything happening in this country and you have you know, you've been saying since 2016, you've been saying that President Trump is brazenly racist and you have this tweet here. For me, the saddest thing about this whole Trump presidency has been finding out that people I knew, liked and respected, including some guys like Coach support this racist, misogynistic, narcissistic person. Painfully disappointing revelations. Have you lost friends over this?
I don't know if I've lost friends. It's more I've ignored people. And by the way, I was not talking about any NBA players. It's guys from long ago in college. And, you know, you read stuff on social media and you just it's disappointing. It's not who I thought. People were, you know, so it hasn't been, you know, as much direct as, you know, seeing what other people are writing and things and yeah, it is disappointing.
Well, look, here's the difference right to me is and I probably haven't made this clear enough, like there's a difference between voting for someone and really supporting them. I mean, a vote is a choice between, you know, two people in a different set of policies. And you may have some policies. It might be the economics for a lot of people. The Republican Party, they're voting because of abortion or whatever. So there may be reasons where, you know, people have to hold their nose and vote.
But to support someone, you know, when I look at the approval ratings and his approval is in 40 percent, I like that's different. I mean, I'm certainly in my life voted for people that I didn't necessarily approve of, but I thought they were the better choice of two people. But to support the stuff that he says, that's where I have the problem.
Are you surprised then? Because I've underestimated for many years the race problem in this country, and I don't think most people associate me with underestimating the race problem. Like when you watch what's happening in America right now. How, Jahed, are you by the division? Oh, it's unbelievable. I think what's happened, like, you know, the race problem never went away. All what I think it at least got to a point for good or for bad, some people would actually argue for bad, but then it went underground a little bit more like it wasn't cool to be out saying racist things.
That's where I think things have changed over the last four years. People now have been empowered and emboldened to just be brazenly racist, you know, not even try to hide it anymore. And I think it's made our world more explosive for sure. And it's and totally divided now. I mean, there I can't even come close to remember in a time where we were this divided as a country.
So you also wrote here and I can't imagine how angry you were watching this or how much of it you watched it, but you said Chris Wallace is a joke as a moderator. This debate is a joke. Trump is a joke. Our country is rapidly becoming a joke, embarrassing and disgusting, like what was happening with you there. Well, no, I mean, I think listen, I don't think other than the Chris Wallace, which a lot of people there was divided opinion on Chris Wallace, how much he could have done or should have done, you know, and I might have been too harsh on him.
But the rest of it. I don't know that anybody's really going to disagree with what we were seeing on the screen now, maybe the implications for the country, but I just think of it this way. You know, if you're somebody from a foreign country and you're here and you're watching our debate and thinking this is this is all country, this is America, like you're going to be looking at it going, are you kidding me? Didn't you don't you guys say all the time, you're the greatest country on Earth.
This is what you do in your election. I mean, that is embarrassing. I think obviously I'm a little biased, but I think most people thought it was mainly Trump's fault. But but Biden got involved in it, too. We got close to that level. It was a joke. That debate was funny. So I like I say, it was beneath us, but it's clearly not. It's who we are now.
Stan, have you ever considered a career in politics? Know what, I'm getting more and more involved in politics, but my wife and I, what we're trying to do is find people a lot smarter than me and people we think can make a difference and then support them in every way we can. We need people a lot smarter than me. I'm going to make a difference in what's going on.
Are you in play for any of these coaching jobs that are available?
Not that I know of. OK, you know, everybody is I don't know where everybody is with their soap, so. But not that I know of now. So is there is there a chance you might get back at it?
Is there a chance that you might if the right offer comes around?
There's a chance. Yeah, I mean, listen, I mean, my brother's been out of it for 30 years and still thinks of it every year, you know, and hasn't taken that plunge yet. But it never goes away. I mean, you know, we will be with coaches from the beginning of our career. And I think that's how we'll always look at ourselves as coaches. And so I don't think ditched coach will ever go away. But but we also both have the you know, the maturity level that might be a little too strong.
But, you know, we're both a little older and have a different perspective that, you know, there are other things out there, too. And, you know, as much as you want to coach, there's also, you know, quality of life and other things like that. So who knows?
I don't Twitter and Paletta, I don't believe him at all. Like, as soon as there are other things important in life, right. Until the Clippers call or something. And then all of a sudden that it is going to get guys there's a good job or the Sixers. That's a good job. Jeff has been getting that itch for how many years? I don't. Jeff's going to be coaching next year. Yes or no. Oh, well, any idea, you know, you eventually somebody approaches him and he really hasn't even gone after a job, he hasn't even gotten to the point of really pursuing it.
He's talked to some people over the years. But, you know, he's never really gotten invested in, like, trying to go get a job. So so I don't know what it is really the whole life thing. If you would ask me, do you want to coach? I would say a hundred percent. Yes, yes. I didn't have to lose, you know, but I'm not looking to take Steve Clifford's job. And the magic would never take me back.
And I'm living in Orlando. But the idea of disrupting your life, I've got to know, like, you know, your dad's an initial estimate two to five miles away from here, both in their 80s. My wife's parents are closer than that. There are two or three miles away and late 70s, early 80s like this. There's all of these things that go into the decision. So what I love to coach. Yeah, it's really the key to me.
Yeah, very good. Like, yeah. Well, like a zoomin. Yeah. Bomaderry, yeah. Bulmer the Clippers are he's in play. If he can coach your team on Zoome.
Yes I'll be if we can maybe get an expansion franchise in Lake Mary. OK.
And get it. All right. See you later. All right Stan. Good talking to you. Stan Van Gundy, analyst for TNT and NBA TV, always appreciate his time.
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Going to be hard to top what I saw Amazon Prime do with the Oscar Pistorius story. A four part documentary you told me about that.
I watched it. It was fascinating.
Yeah, it's it's interesting if you haven't seen that, Mike, where is the Borat sequel appearing? Where on Amazon Prime?
Actually, well before the election, I think I saw a release date of October 27. Don't quote me, but it's coming out before the election. People are excited about that.
It has been a minute. He is he is quite the genius when it comes to not breaking character. He's been doing it across a couple of decades. A lot of people are going to look forward to that. Christine Lacy, I'm sorry.
Please continue my. And finally, a Romanian village has re-elected a mayor who passed away from covid prior to the election.
I don't understand how that well, I'll say it again. Yeah, just like they re-elected a dead guy. Yeah. Thank you. I don't understand how that happens either. On name recognition, it's actually Strogatz is a voter. That's what I it happens because God loves anyone who's a name, anybody who has a name. Thank you for being on with us. They read the newspaper or they read on the Internet. They heard of in person was dead and I've heard of him.
I'm going to vote for him. I believe, not surprisingly, does not know how to feel about a best of three series. Thank you, Christine. Appreciate the time, as always. Billy is up one. Oh, he is about to challenge the Chicago Cubs.
He's got a house money game today. He's got a house money game. You Darvish is who he's going up against. How do you feel about the three game series or why are you conflicted about the three game series?
Well, to be clear, Dan, I'm not up against any of these people. I'm an unbiased member of the media. The Marlins are doing all these things. I'm right down the middle when it comes to this series. I just kind of observe what's going on and I'm happy for well, I'm happy for no one, because that's not allowed because I'm an unbiased member of the media. But, man, this series, if I was someone that was not unbiased and I felt things, what a mess.
This is hard because you go into the thing yesterday, the Marlins, when you're like, whoa, we are riding high right now. We're about to move on to the next series if we just win one more game.
But if you lose two games, then you're out of the playoffs all together. These three game series, all bets are off. We've talked about this a lot. That seems to be the theme of the series so far, but it can go up and down and you're feeling good about yesterday, but you lose today. You could be eliminated tomorrow. Again, not me, though. I'm unbiased right down the middle. But that's what people are feeling.
That's what they're saying. Gill, ESPN.
The mutated baseball season has made everything even more random than it would normally be. A best of three. I'm not kidding you when I say this to God. You could put a minor league team in these playoffs and they could be. They could win. No, but they could they could win a best of three.
I think that's I think that's the frustrating thing for teams like the Dodgers to play that good during the regular season. Granted, it was only sixty games and have no advantage over anyone, any of the other teams in the playoffs. Zero. I mean, the advantage is that you're better than they are, but the randomness of the playoffs makes I think we can agree that best of three as a measurement tool is not something that any of us would advocate at any other time except during a pandemic.
I don't know if you've heard of this, Dan, but the NBA or the NFL playoffs, best of one. And March Madness, best of one every round.
It isn't exactly best of one. When you have to win, you win. You move on. When you win lose, you go home. You have to win six games, though. You have to win over the course of six. I understand you're only playing one team, but those aren't great measurements either. March Madness is a lot of fun. It doesn't mean that you're going to necessarily have the best measurement on who your champion is.
The pirates were 19 and 41. If they played in one of these best of threes, they could potentially win one.
And anybody can win a three game series. Billy.
Yeah, but hold on a second. Baseball, you don't just win three games and you win the World Series. You have to win four and four and three and two. So you need to win. What's that, like fifteen or something now? Eight, nine, eleven. Yeah. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter what.
The best of three, harder than to win, the best of one. What I am saying is that best of three doesn't do a great job of measuring the better winner. But what it can do is punish the better team by making it so random that their season is over in two games after they've played 60 better than anyone else.
The pirates swept the Brewers during the regular season and again, the pirates had 19 wins. They swept the Brewers. The Brewers are playoff team.
Yes, the Brewers are some five hundred playoff team. Like there's so many playoff teams in baseball that what you're doing here. This is March Madness. That's what baseball is doing right now. It's awesome. Best of three is March Madness, Billy. So I'm just talking about it as a measurement. It's the reason you wanted the Marlins in the playoffs because you love how random this sport is. Football's also super random as it comes to this stuff. But what you get built into having a great season like the Dodgers is a first round by the Patriots, spent their entire life in the Super Bowl because they were always playing in the AFC East, always finishing in first place and always getting a first round bye.
They never had to go on the road to play to test the randomness of a road playoff game. They did. I shouldn't say never. They did it occasionally, but not very often. They beat the Chiefs a couple of years ago, not this year.
Dan, these playoffs, as we discussed earlier, about grit and who wants it more, no free passes in the MLB playoffs than no buys. You want to win, you got to win.
OK, are you doing that's the kind of analysis people will be able to get if they watch a twitch game with you or you guys deciding you've decided you're going to do that at some point here. No, no official announcements, but people can watch a game on Twitter. Marlin's game on Twitch with Billy soon, hopefully.
What sounds like the cat's out of the bag. Now, Dan, this is going to happen possibly game three if necessary, or next round.
I again ask you ask this question about fifteen years ago, why was the cat in the back of a Libertador show?
Full cats will be watching NBA Finals Game four if necessary. Heed the Lakers next week as well.
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The weekend starts today and unfortunately, it starts with the Broncos heading into MetLife Stadium to play the Jets, Adam Gase, his job is on the line as the Jets have started out in three with a combined score of ninety four to thirty seven. Don't watch that. People don't watch it. The Broncos also three. Don't watch that. I'm not have it done much better. Plus, Drew Lock is listed as out, which leaves them with Brett Ripia, Mark Sun starting under center instead of Jeff Driscoll.
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I'm going to scroll back here down to the beginning of the week because we only have one poll today. So you got to give me a second. Well, we haven't done we haven't done any polls this week. We haven't updated any of the polls this week. The show is a little sluggish today. We're all a little beat up. Mike Ryan's energy has basically soiled everybody. Billy still dancing.
I'm flying high as an unbiased member of the media outlet. It's show on Twitter. Going back to Monday here, who is more wrong dancing? Josh Allen was terrible. Or Colin Cowherd saying the Miami Heat can't shoot. Sixty nine percent of the audience said Colin Cowherd. Nice, does Dick Metcalf make you feel like less of a man? He does. Seventy six percent of the audience said yes, scroll it up here. Big fat white faces, big fat white faces, big suey.
Wow.
Big, big, fat white face is there were sports analysis for predicting result.
Then I have a feeling that was Greg Coatis analysis. Well, I have just unbelievable. It's so bad. Like you should turn off someone's microphone if what they're analysis on a sporting event is.
I have a feeling I love it. 70 percent of the audience said. Now, does the pope wear red shoes? An important one. It is 60 percent of the audience said yes. Now I've done some research on this. The pope definitively for the 40 percent that said, no, he does wear red shoes or slippers, maybe the nose. We're thinking slippers. I don't know. OK, I don't know. I can't speak for the nose.
OK, scroll up here. Hold on a second. Doorways get an honest day's work out of Miles Garrett's.
There was one very high profile time.
They did it right, but fifty six percent of the audience said yes. Honest day's work. It's growing up here. Golden State Warriors parade.
Me and Poppy Harlow are with Mike and low fat white faces.
Well, me and Bobby, what is the better feeling returning from the restroom to your food, being ready at a restaurant or waking up from a nap to the words? We're entering the witching hour.
A groggy belly awoke to the witching hour last Sunday, 61 percent of the audience said restaurant. Who do you believe about Stargardt's attending Diana Rossini's wedding? Your choices were Diana and Stargardt's. I mean, of course I'm going to lose. I was there, though, 85 percent of the audience ever seen.
You know, I saw at Katie Nolan for not going to the wedding. Diana does seem to me like someone that would take inventory of who actually showed up. So I'm believing Diana here.
I have no doubt that that she did take inventory. I know Katie Nolan wasn't there, but I know I was there again. I received a private message on Zoome from Woge. It was meant for everyone, but Woj just sent it to me. Doesn't know how to use it is to gods killing the dolphins. What's the resort? It was the resort dolphin, you were frolicking with him, you said that, you said they looked happy because they have a smile on their face.
And Ron McGill said you were killing me.
Three squares, then you will pet their tummies. And 91 percent of the audience said yes.
Three square meals. Guys, you refer to championship's as chips. Huncke Douceur. No, Duche. Yeah, Mike did that earlier this week. I love him for eighty five percent of the audience said Douche.
Those are the polls that that was not Mike who I don't remember doing that he did that. But it sounds like something Mike does. I have said that we are going to do a post game show now, wherever it is that you download this stuff, get the post game show, it's been consistently funny and support Lebed TARDE and friends join us over there.
I think that's all I found in the attic is curse. No, its eyes are just very lifelike. Then what does its head keep spinning in my mind?
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