Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame broadcaster Mike Breen, calling his 21st NBA Finals, debuting NBA Finals analyst Tim Legler, former NBA Champion and returning analyst Richard Jefferson and Tim Corrigan, ESPN senior vice president, sports production previewed the 2026 NBA Finals on a June 2 media conference call.
CORRIGAN: This is a highlight for us every year. It's an honor and a privilege to take on the responsibility of the NBA Finals. It's the kind of thing you dream about working on in the production world and as an announcer, and we're just so thrilled about the matchup that we have.
Incredible Western Conference Finals that end up with Victor Wembanyama and company making it to The Finals. And for the Knicks, not since '73, to have them back in this and the anticipation and excitement that comes with that is just off the charts. We couldn't be more thrilled with the matchup and how everything's played out. Exciting times for all of our group on the production, the technology, the operations, all sides.
But the narrators of this, Mike Breen doing his 21st finals, what a neat story for him to be able to call the Knicks doing this. Tim Legler, who we all know and love his work over the last 25 years, to have him sitting next to Mike, and Richard back for his second Finals. It's just fantastic how everything has worked out. These three guys have been fantastic together all season.
We're thrilled to roll them out on the biggest stage possible so more people can appreciate their intellect for the game and their intelligence and teaching the game and the entertaining, fun way they're going to go about doing it.
Nothing better than having Lisa Salters on the sidelines. Lisa is back; this is either number six or seven for her being at The Finals. We just love having Lisa there for this. She's got a heck of a year coming too with the Super Bowl coming in February to add to her resume of huge events that she does.
On the game front, absolutely thrilled with that team. This will be year one of the Tip-Off/Inside the NBA crew being part of what we're doing too. I can tell you from day one of meeting with them in Atlanta leading up to this, this is something they've had circled on their calendar of things they've never done. So, the excitement level with Ernie, Kenny, Shaq, and Charles - again, when people have been around this long and accomplished so much, it's rare that there's something new that they get to do. To have them here and be part of this is just going to put us over the top in the pregame leading in and in the postgame afterwards.
Per our normal selves, we'll also have Scott Van Pelt come on after the games when we're done with Inside. Scott will be onsite for all the Eastern games in New York and will host from D.C. on the Western nights up until there's a clinch game. If the clinch is West, he'll be there for that.
Of course, it wouldn't be us if we weren't doing two hours of NBA Today from site on all the game days that happen during the week. So, count on Malika, Perk, Danny Green, Shump, Ryan Windhorst, and a cast of thousands kind of coming out and being part of that as well.
Per normal, we've got everybody involved with this. We couldn't be more excited about what this means for us, and to be able to start the season every year with preseason and then finish it off hopefully in Game 7 of The Finals, that's exactly what we all signed up for. Couldn't be more excited about what we have in front of us.
Q. Mike, I just wanted to ask you what this means to you. Very simple question.
BREEN: Kind of a bucket list thing, Anthony. I mean, 21 Finals is impossible to comprehend for me. I always thought it would be pretty cool to have the Knicks in one. So, it's a bucket list, and to see the growth of the team the last couple of years and to see what this team has done for the fan base in New York - I've lived in New York my whole life - it's really energized the city like nothing I've ever seen. So, I'm really looking forward to it.
Q. Mike, this is kind of a follow-up on Anthony's question. Have you allowed yourself to think what your emotions will be like if the Knicks win the title? Don La Greca and Alan Hahn and those guys were talking about you on the radio yesterday and wondering hypothetically if the Knicks had a parade, would you host it? What kind of role would you have in it? I know they're getting ahead of themselves a little bit, but what would be your emotions if they win this thing?
BREEN: You know, Adam, it's hard to say. The number one thing for me is I have a job to do, and I have to do a professional job, and with all the responsibilities that go into it both prior and during the course of the series, that's what I'm concentrating on now. I'm not trying to think about it yet.
As the series goes on every year, no matter who's in it, you try and think of, okay, how am I going to word this? How am I going to wrap up, summarize what this means to the winning team, what this means to the losing team? And you wait until the series goes on before you get into those thoughts.
I'm not trying to avoid it. I'm not thinking about it yet. I do know what it would mean to the city and to the fans of the city. I don't think we've ever - the city - it might be one of the great sports moments in the history of New York sports if they win because of what the fan base has gone through and how loyal they've been to the team.
As for my emotions, it's hard to predict that.
Q. What about just the idea that people have waited so long, and guys who are in their 20s and 30s now, they didn't see what happened in the '90s, they weren't there for that. The '70s is almost ancient history to them. How would this sort of validate things for a younger generation?
BREEN: That's the cool thing is you have all the people who remember '73, and it's so long ago, but you have a couple of generations of fans who are saying to themselves will I ever see a Knick championship in my lifetime? We saw that with the Cubs when they finally won, with the Red Sox when they finally won. It's such an emotional thing because the fans, they invest so much time and emotion, they care so much.
For me it's always the favorite part every year is what it means to the city that the team's in, what it means to the fans, and this one, because it's been so long and so many of the fans have never experienced anything like this, I think it's going to be one of the all-time reactions in terms of people being emotional. There will be a lot of crying.
Q. This is a question for everyone on the broadcast. Even as recently as like five years ago, could you have imagined a physical specimen like Wemby, someone who has just the size and handles and shooting ability that he does?
LEGLER: Honestly, no. The first time you saw videotape of Victor Wembanyama, it was hard to process exactly what you were looking at. Never seen anything quite like it. That kind of length with that kind of agility, ball handling ability, shooting range, all of that. Just the fluidity with which he runs for a guy that size.
We've all seen guys 7'4, 7'5 and up. I played with the tallest guy that ever played in the NBA, Gheorghe Muresan, 7'7, and I can tell you this, he didn't run like Victor Wembanyama. So, no, I don't think I could have imagined it.
It's really just he's 1 of 1, and he has brought an incredible dimension not only to the season, to the Spurs, but what this Finals represents and what it's going to mean for a guy like that and the physical tools that he has.
JEFFERSON: I'm going to go a little different. I'm going to go a little different than Tim. I think the way the game has evolved where big men are shooting 3s, big men are more mobile. Did we think we'd see a specimen like him? No. But the beauty of the NBA is we find these unique athletes from all over the world.
You look at Joel Embiid, 7-foot, 270 pounds, and he's so skilled. Giannis is a physical specimen that looks like Shaq out there but 70 pounds lighter. So, I think one of the beautiful things about the NBA is that it's the best athletes in the world. It's the most versatile athletes in the world.
So, every 10 or 15 years, it feels like one of these anomalies show up and do things that we've never seen before. So, could you have predicted Wemby? I don't think so, but when 7-footers start shooting 3s 10, 15 years ago, if Wemby was born 25 years ago, he would have never even been put in the position to do what he has been doing, I think, or start working on his ball handling or perimeter game.
But we've seen a lot of 7-Footers, you can look at Dirk being one of them, guys that had the mobile, the shooting ability, but we've never seen all of the combination that we've seen in Wemby. That part to me, I think it's an evolution of the game, but like Tim said, Wemby is a 1 of 1, what he's able to do. His mobility at that size is truly special.
Q. This is for Legs and Richard. You talk about Wemby. I was wondering what you think of the other younger players on the Spurs, Harper and Castle in particular? Just been so excellent in the postseason here, but they're playing against a Knicks team that one of their advantages seemed to be their experience. What are your expectations from those two guys in particular?
JEFFERSON: I think the part in this is that people aren't fully appreciating Wemby's teammates. Wemby is definitely the superstar. He's definitely that guy, but you forget like Castle was Rookie of the Year, like Dylan Harper was the No. 2 pick. De'Aaron Fox, he's an all-NBA All-Star guy. So, he's got a very talented roster.
Now, has this roster been on a multi-year journey? Have they had playoff experience together? No. But when you look at the Spurs as an organization, this is what they do. They get their young talent, and they do great things. You have Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson, who was Sixth Man of the Year.
So, I think the biggest mistake you could ever do in this team is look at it and say it's just Wemby and then everybody else. There's a lot of top picks. There's a lot of talent.
Lastly, I'll say this. If you go back and look at all of the guys that are Defensive Player of the Years, you look at Rudy a couple of years ago, he had Jaden McDaniels, he had Anthony Edwards, he had elite defensive wings around him. And I think you look at Wemby, obviously he's a defensive juggernaut, but a lot of that also is he has elite defensive wings around him, and they play with extreme effort.
So, the Defensive Player of the Year for Wemby, while he'll get all the blocks, it's the talented defensive perimeter around him also. Every Defensive Player of the Year has elite defensive players also around them.
LEGLER: Yeah, I think for me I'm looking at these young guards - Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, a couple of guys like that I'll start with. First of all, their want to play that end of the floor, their physical strength, their maturity. I love their business-like approach. They just seem like they're out there for one specific purpose, and it's to win and to improve.
Dylan Harper to me is one of the most powerful 19-year-old guards we've ever seen come into this league of the one-and-done guys. He plays right through contact, and to me he's a future superstar. Stephon Castle, Rookie of the Year, plays both ends of the floor, dramatically improved his offense since he got into the league.
Even the other guys, guys like Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie, these guys get after it on both ends. They can fill a role every night, or they can step up and become major impact offensive players if it requires it on a given night. I'm just so impressed with their depth, their connection, their chemistry. These guys are super mature for their ages.
I think to Richard's point, I don't know that we've talked enough about the supporting cast.
Q. This is for Tim and Richard. Just wondering what do you think about OG Anunoby as a defender potentially against Victor Wembanyama? What do you think about that matchup?
LEGLER: I look at Wemby all year, just the evolution of his career, and I look at, if you could have a physical profile that you would go into a lab and create and say this is sort of the physical profile you need to have a chance against him, it probably would look a lot like OG Anunoby - a guy with enough length, can't be in the 6'4, 6'5 length, got to be bigger than that, lateral mobility for a bigger guy, and then the physical strength to be able to get into Wemby and move him around the best that you can.
None of this stuff is easy and it's a very complicated thing, and it's a team thing, but for me OG Anunoby, and the way he's guarded him this year, to me that's the type of defender you have to have to have a chance because of his combination of just agility laterally, which you need, length to contest as much as you can from a guy that's 7'5 with a high release point, and then the physical strength and determination. Like you have to have a guy that is so committed to that end of the floor.
In this case, it's unique because this isn't a guy who's a sacrificial lamb defensively and you don't worry about his offense. They need his offense too, OG's, on the other end of the floor. It's a major task for him, and the minutes he's on the court, he'll be the primary guy on him. I think in this situation the Knicks are probably going to do what they can to keep him on him as much as they can.
Certainly, sometimes you have to switch or there's a crossmatch, but he is the guy they would want to have on him, and I think they've got about as good a defender as you can for this type of matchup responsibility.
JEFFERSON: I would agree. I think you look at - even Hartenstein, while he is more of a traditional big, his mobility, his size, his strength - understand, there is no stopping players in the NBA. That's not a real thing. I told a story a little bit ago about Kobe Bryant said Tony Allen was the best player to ever guard him, and Kobe averaged 29 on Tony Allen.
While OG is a perfect player, in my opinion, to guard Wemby, the size, the consistency, the competitiveness in which he brings, he's still giving up a foot. It's one of those things that it's the physicality aspect, and can you maintain that consistently? What I love about OG, he felt he should have been on the First Team All-Defensive team. Well, you get to go out there and prove it on the biggest stage. I always love players with a little bit of an edge that want something to prove.
Q. This is for all three of you. This series being a rematch of the 1999 Finals, I was wondering if each of you could reflect on what you remember of that series and where you were at that point in your lives.
JEFFERSON: I was in high school, so Mike, you got this.
BREEN: I had just turned 70 (laughter). No, it was a great year for San Antonio because it's their first title and it meant so much to the city. San Antonio - I talked earlier about how New York's crazed about what the Knicks are doing this year - the Spurs fans were so overjoyed. It was really emotional for them to get that first title.
Tim Duncan was magnificent. It was the first of many. That's when you started to realize Tim Duncan was going to be one of the greatest players of all time.
As for the Knicks, they were the 8 seed. They were a team that kind of meandered through the short regular season. Then they had that great finish. Almost got knocked out in the first round of Miami and somehow found a way to become the first 8 seed to be in The Finals. But they didn't have enough. Patrick Ewing didn't play, Larry Johnson was banged up, and the Spurs were just a better team.
You look at the two coaches, Gregg Popovich, his first title. Jeff Van Gundy did a magnificent job. That's where everybody realized what a great coach he was. It was actually a great year for both teams, even though the Knicks fell short, but San Antonio you started to think, okay, this could be a team that's going to win a lot of titles in a row. Not in a row, but they obviously did win multiple titles.
LEGLER: I think for me, I was in the league. That was the second to last year of my career. 99-2000 was the last year of my career. The first thing I remember is the lockout, so that was an interesting year as we missed over half a season and then crammed a bunch of games in at the end. It was a very unusual year in that regard. I've never really seen anything quite like that.
Now I go back to the Playoffs and The Finals, another thing I remember about that, as San Antonio won that series, how low scoring the games were. I don't think we're going to get anything that looks quite like that this time around. I believe five-game series, so ten scores posted total, nine of those did not make 90 points, 9 of the 10 scores. One team one time got over 90. We're not going to see that this time around.
The league looked a lot different at that time than it does now. Obviously, the prevalence of the 3-point shooting and everything else. The number of guys capable of making that shot on any given possession has changed all of that.
I think for me going back to that time was just the anxiety of the lockout, when we were going to get started, and then just recalling how different, like the scoring and the offenses looked at that time compared to today.
JEFFERSON: Like I said, I was in high school, so my head was barely on straight. I will say this; David Robinson was my favorite player growing up. He was the first player that I kind of started watching around the game of basketball. And then honestly, I think people forget Tim Duncan being the No. 1 pick and what he was able to accomplish, winning in college, and then early on I think he won Rookie of the Month every month in his conference, he was so dominant.
And it was a weird year because it was a lockout. But you have the Knicks and then you had San Antonio, but for me it was watching the beginning of a Spurs dynasty. I grew up watching the Knicks, so I grew up in the late 1900s. So, when you watch Larry Johnson, Patrick Ewing, and they were on TV every single day. You were watching John Starks versus Michael Jordan.
So to see them get so close to that championship that Michael Jordan and all of their battles and they had fallen short, that was to me kind of the beginning of me really watching the NBA in a different style just because I was getting closer to potentially being one of those players to have a chance to get there, but I was still just such a big fan of both teams really at that point in my career.
Q. This one is for Mike. It's your fourth different NBA Finals booth in as many years. What's been the biggest challenge in adapting your announcing to different partners every year? Also, if you could speak specifically to what do you think has worked well with Tim and Richard this year?
BREEN: Actually, part of the fun of the job is working with so many different people, but it is a challenge because you just get familiar with people in terms of how they speak on the air, how they interact with their other analysts.
Doing a three-person booth takes a little longer sometimes in terms of getting that chemistry, but these two guys, it's been amazing from day one. I mean, they had that fist fight after the first game we did in, I think it was Indianapolis, but they were able to put it aside after that and get along (laughter).
I give so much credit - and it's hard for me to publicly say something nice about Richard, but he was so welcoming to Tim and bringing him in, Richard's second Finals and Leg's first. The two play off of each other so well. They have different perspectives as players. I appreciate listening to them talk about those experiences. They have so much fun together. They knew each other before the season began, but they've become great friends. I love the enthusiasm and the passion.
And the number one thing for both of them - and it's the key for any analyst, to me it shows how much they love the game. Every time we do a game, every time on a broadcast, they just love the game so much. It just keeps getting better and better. Like in a basketball team, continuity is important. Like a broadcast team, continuity is important, and we've been able to do a lot of games this year. I'm thrilled with how we started and how we continue to get better every game.
Q. I have two questions, first for Tim Corrigan. Obviously coming back to MSG for The Finals, does that present any challenges in terms of being inside that building with the size of the production? And then anything you're excited to bring to this Finals to develop the drama of it?
CORRIGAN: You know what, the Garden just on a regular basis during an NBA season when we go in there and do three-way games between the two locals and us, it's used to finding locations and spaces for cameras and things just on a regular weekday game where we might have 30 cameras in there doing it. We're going to have 52 cameras and like 120 channels of replay. So, we can be there and have the right angle for everything.
All of our meetings thus far with MSG because, when we get down to these final four teams, you survey all the buildings so you can plan what you want to build and what you want to do. There's nothing about Madison Square Garden that will prevent us from doing exactly what we want to do on air. Adding things like SkyCam, RF Steadicams that can roam around and kind of bring you closer to the game with the RFs going to break, coming out of break, things like that. I think the SkyCam, we've used it for probably a dozen years now on big games in the regular season Conference Finals and Finals.
What we've learned from that is it's really a valuable resource for replay much more than it is for live game coverage, but it can be very impactful in free throws and crowd and just feeling the energy of the game in key moments. For Richard and for Tim, it ends up being good telestrating angles as well to see why something happened and be able to see relativity and relationship of everybody who's on the court because a lot of times, as we all know, it's not necessarily about the person who finished the play, but a couple things that may have happened prior to that that allowed the finish to happen.
Yeah, I don't think there's anything preventative of being there. I think we're thrilled with just the energy we felt in the games, as Mike mentioned, of being there and the excitement of the city and some of the watch parties, and things that have been around the Garden have also been impactful either outside or in places that they're housing them. I think that will become part of our coverage as well.
Q. My second question for Richard is about the game times and about sleep. I know you've talked about your routines in the past. I'm curious with the tip-offs being 8:30 this year, they used to be 9:00 back in the day, if your teams changed their preparation, their daily routines for that? Also, I'm wondering if you felt the Western Conference teams had an advantage there given their body clocks.
JEFFERSON: I think there is an adjustment, but that's part of the fun, right? When you play in these games, the times kind of shift a little bit. When we were going from Cleveland to Golden State, I went from New Jersey to Los Angeles, so there was a big-time shift.
I would say it doesn't affect you at all when you're in the two and two. The two and two, teams are here, you're acclimated, your body clock is pretty much normal. Even when you're shifting and there's those two days in between, your body starts to get - it's a lot easier. When you're doing the one, one, and one towards the end, the 5, 6, 7, that's when it becomes a shift, but it becomes a shift for both teams. So, I don't think there's necessarily an advantage there.
But I think in the beginning there is - in the beginning there's not much of an adjustment, but when you start doing one game in each city to end it off, that's where the clock starts to get a little difficult. Example, we did Game 5 in Golden State and then we did Game 6, and then we were getting ready for Game 7. You're East Coast. It's later. Your energy is so up. It was hard to go to bed before 2:00, 3:00 in the morning after Game 6 because your body clock is so kind of - you're adrenalined up, and your body clock is a little different.
At that point in time, if you get to a Game 6 or Game 7, no one cares about your routine. You're more focused - you could go without sleep for a week. Your job is just to get it done.
Q. Are you still taking naps before broadcasts?
JEFFERSON: Every single day. I take a nap every single day, sometimes two.
Q. For Tim and for Richard, I wanted to ask about the difficulty of repeating. Obviously, Oklahoma City was the favorite to repeat. They didn't make it. Last year the Celtics got knocked out. Will we see a dynasty again? Even if I think, if the Knicks won this year, I don't know if they'd be favored to go and win next year. It just seems like there's so many teams coming, it's so hard to repeat. Can you guys kind of touch on the difficulty of maybe pulling off what the Warriors did 10 years ago and going back-to-back?
LEGLER: Look, it's not a coincidence that we're repeatedly having different champions. It's so difficult to pull it off because so many things went right for you in that season in which you win the first one, health at the top of the list. It's also keeping your personnel together, having the right kind of chemistry, having the right guys that continue to be selfless and make it all about achieving that end goal, and then health on top of it.
It's just difficult to pull that off in consecutive years, particularly when teams that came up short that feel like they're close, they're the ones that are going to go out and continue to try to tinker with the roster and add the right piece. Maybe they had a year, that runner-up team or that team that lost in the Conference Finals, they had a team in which guys weren't healthy that time of the year or in the playoffs, and maybe next year they do get that.
It's just hard. So many things have to go so right for you to get one. That's why we've seen so many teams have a difficult time repeating. You've got to get the right group. First the right player, I think as your leader and best player, and then you've got to have the right group and core around them that have good health. Most importantly, take accountability for each other and play for the greater good of the group. It's hard to find that magic, and it's hard to keep that. I think that's why it's become more and more difficult.
Will we get another one? Yes, absolutely. We will get another team, I believe. If it's not back-to-back, maybe you'll get a team that wins three in five years. It's going to happen again, but I think it's certainly much more difficult maybe than it used to be.
JEFFERSON: I think, even if you look at the prior back to backs, the three-peats, some of these teams, like Legs said, health was a very big part of it. You look at OKC's health situation. You look at Golden State when they lost to Toronto, their health situation there towards the end.
Shoot, we have a player currently playing in the NBA still that went to eight straight Finals, and we just gloss over that because we'll look at, oh, well, their record. It's like eight straight Finals that this player went to, and we're not able to get a back-to-back champion currently.
I think it gives us a good look at how hard it is to do some of these feats we've seen in the past. I think the salary cap structure and these aprons don't allow you to say, hey, we're going to keep our guys together no matter the cost because we drafted them, we picked them, and we want to keep our players together. So, I think even that has added a component that might make it a little bit more difficult where there's teams that have decisions to make. Do we keep our All-Star All-NBA guy, or do we keep this up-and-coming guy?
But we will see it again. You need health. You look at Boston won the championship, and they were favored the following year. So, you'll get it, but I think health has been the biggest struggle for that, to be able to have that happen in recurring seasons.
Q. This is, I guess, primarily a question for Tim. One of the main story lines of last year's Finals was the idea that it didn't quite feel like The Finals. We've seen a lot of moves by ESPN and ABC to try to meet that criticism. For example, I think everybody in this room is aware the NBA is putting the trophy logo back on the court, putting The Finals logo back on the court as well for the first time in many years. For ESPN and ABC, toward the end of last year's series, you were showing the starting lineups in the arena, which hadn't been done in a few years. This year did it again in the Conference Finals. Are there other aspects of the production plan this year to kind of meet that criticism from a year ago? I noticed in the press release yesterday you're doing one of those pre-taped opens that you had done for many years. I think the last one was with Spike Lee in '21. Can you give some detail on that and any other aspects of the production plan that are kind of meant to make it feel a little more like The Finals again?
CORRIGAN: Appreciate your noticing and recognizing a lot of this nuance. We will show National Anthem and starting lineups for all seven games. That is part of our timings that we're reworking. I think we're tipping at 42, so that would be 7:42 locally, 8:42 on the East Coast.
Regarding the on air - again, little things happen that people maybe don't take notice to. Every year we roll out a new graphics package that is black and gold and what we consider kind of a primetime feel that feels like The Finals. It has that look, and we have the script everywhere and things like that to make sure it doesn't look and feel like everything else we're doing.
I've mentioned the equipment load that we do. Yeah, we're going to have seven 80-second opens literally, 80 seconds each, that are going to be celebrations of the NBA Finals. The one that airs in Game 1 will be different than the one that airs in Game 2 and so on and so on.
The first one is called Stage, and the idea behind that was we considered doing one open for The Finals, but once you start - which is what we did for a number of years, but once you start considering all the people and all the moments, you don't want to leave anybody out. So, I think - and going back and looking at that, we decided let's build something special for each game and make sure we get everybody in as opposed to not getting everybody in.
Just think of somebody like LeBron, he's got a Finals story in Miami, he's got a Finals story in Cleveland, he's got a Finals story in L.A. Think about like Kareem, what he did with Milwaukee and then what he did with L.A. So certain guys have multiple stories to tell.
Also, you don't want to leave out the Big E or Dennis Johnson or Allen Iverson or Gar Heard, so many of these other things that are like these Finals moments that are etched in those of us who care deeply about it. So, it's been a really fun kind of history project that a large group of us have been involved in, and we're really excited to drop this.
I think Ben's going to show some of this tomorrow in the afternoon before we even get to Game 1, but that's one of those things that I think, when we went back and elaborated on, hey, what can we do that makes it feel back to a bigger, larger thing than it doesn't matter who's playing against who? At the end of the day, Brunson and Wemby and those guys will be playing to be part of this open moving forward.
It's a really astute observation on your part and something that we care about and really want this when you turn this on to feel a little bit like, wow, what an amazing event this is. I'm glad that they're celebrating, not just the two teams that are in it, but everyone who's played a part in it.
Q. Will that at all include - I know in the past you had a different cut of your theme music for The Finals. Would that be something that would be for this year or next year down the line?
CORRIGAN: You know what, we scored music for this, and the music we scored will repeat throughout the game as needle drop. I think the music you'll hear, just as the theme that we use on billboards and things like that, you'll recognize that that's been consistent with what we've done last year The Finals and this year.
Again, billboards is another area where, you know what, it's 20 seconds that we do four times a game coming and going to break. How do we make that feel special? Again, we've found little moments. Again, we've done this historically that we just want to celebrate.
So, yeah, I think the music will be familiar to you, John, because I know you're a music guy and you recognize that, but there will also be some other scored cuts that will drop in that will just feel a little bit more like a big event.
Q. Just kind of a two-parter here. Last year's final between Indiana and OKC, lowest rated in four years. Obviously, a massive audience for Game 7. Just from the people involved here, the expectations with two larger markets involved, obviously the story line with the Knicks and the Spurs, the rematch of '99, viewership expectations. For you, Mike, how are you making sure, I know you've called plenty of Knicks playoff games in the past, but calling it down the middle and remaining as objective and neutral as possible throughout the series?
BREEN: I'll take the last part first. I've done a lot of Knick games on national TV for years. I was fortunate when I first started to watch Marv Albert and the way he handled it because he called Knicks Finals. It's your job. It's your profession. There's so much going on that you don't have time to think the other way. I'd like to think that I'll always call it down the middle.
The funny thing is every year, even when the Knicks are not in it, if it's the Celtics-Lakers, Lakers fans think we're rooting for the Celtics, and the Celtics fans think we're rooting for the Lakers. So, it's an annual tradition, and I actually think it's a great tradition because it means the fans care so much and they're so passionate.
The other thing too, I love basketball so much. So, when De'Aaron Fox or Wemby or Stephon Castle make a spectacular play, I'm going to go crazy because I love watching great basketball. I can't wait for it. I just want to see a great matchup. I'll do my very, very best to be professional and go right down the middle.
JEFFERSON: I'll jump in in support of Mike there. I won a championship with Cleveland. I know the GM. I know the fan base. We were in Cleveland watching him call it straight down the middle and watching him celebrate both teams. That's one thing that I've gained so much respect from him now working with Mike the last two seasons is the passion that he has for the game of basketball.
Like I said, I have a championship ring with Cleveland. I would have loved to see Cleveland win a championship again, right? That would have been great for the fan base. They've been so great. But I've learned so much from watching Mike and just how he does it where he's excited for both teams, he wants to celebrate the stories for both teams.
I think that's something that, while people are always kind of looking at him and his love for the Knicks, I think his love for basketball and telling stories, I think that that is so great.
People are always going to complain, but I've watched him year after year do that, and I've learned from him how to call the game straight down the middle and listen to what he says and the way he does it. It does take a tremendous amount of skill, and I think he does an outstanding job.
Trust me, as a Cleveland champion, to look over and see the Knick guy and you're like you're doing a really, really good job of just kind of playing it right down the middle, but that's what you want. You want to be able to listen to the game as a fan.
I can't speak on the ratings stuff, but I would say this, we got to call a Game 7 in the NBA Finals last year. I don't care if I was calling it in my bedroom. I don't care if there's 100 million people watching. For us sitting there and being able to call an historic thing for the thing that we love the most, that is what I'm excited about. The ratings, that's the company, that's the stuff, I think - for us on the broadcast, we care about calling the best game possible and having the best situation, and last year was that Game 7.
The other stuff, I think we leave that for people in different positions.
LEGLER: I'll just tack on it real quick at the end too and agree, echo what Richard said about Mike. It's actually kind of amazing to me to watch Mike call with equal amount of enthusiasm if an opponent of the Knicks is playing beautiful basketball, if they hit a big shot, it's a big moment, he has equal amount of enthusiasm in the call because he loves and respects the game that much. So, I echo everything that Richard just said.
I can tell you this, the only team I truly love in any sport are the Washington Commanders. Everybody knows that about me. I can tell you right now, if they put me in the booth for a Commanders game to do analysis, there would definitely be some things coming out of my mouth that you could question how unbiased I was, there is no doubt about that. I kind of sit there and marvel at what Mike is able to do.
The last point about the matchup, Richard talked about calling Game 7 of The Finals last year. I would love to have that opportunity this year in The Finals sitting next to these two guys, but if you're not interested in this matchup, I don't know what the hell it would take.
I don't know what it would take if you're not incredibly - I'm not just talking about the basketball fans out there that really love the game or love these two teams. I'm talking about people that, yeah, I kind of love the NBA, this should pique your interest to want to watch this matchup and the two storylines, and I think the quality of basketball that we are going to get.
As you can tell, I'm pretty excited to get this thing started tomorrow night. I can't wait. I have the best seat in the house and the best two partners to work with that I could possibly ask for. So, I'm blessed and honored, and I cannot wait to get going.
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Source: ESPN
