 Welcome to another episode of In the Zone. I'm your host, Chris Broussard. We've got another tremendous show for you as the NBA playoffs heat up. We've got Tim Hardaway, should be Hall of Famer from the 1990s, one of the best point guards of his era. He'll be joining me for my interview. But before that, we're going to start off, as always, with the top five postseason player power rankings. And at number five, a surprise, Kyle Corvert. That's right. I'm going to give the role player, the great shooter, some love after struggling in Boston. He was the Cavaliers second best player in the two games they won in Cleveland and even up the series. Average 14 points a game, shot nine of 12 from the field, including six of nine from three. And more than that, he played great defense. That's right. 37-year-old, slow-footed, athletically challenged. Kyle Corvert deed up. And that was critical to Cleveland getting back in the series. He blocked three shots in game four, including two on the ultra-athletic Jalen Brown. At number four, Jalen Brown. I know he got his shot blocked a couple of times by Kyle Corvert. I know Boston looked bad in Cleveland losing two games. I know Brown only had 10 points in game three, but he had 25 in game four. And the way he played in the second half, including the 15 points he had in the fourth quarter to get Boston back within striking distance, I think that may have given the Celtics momentum and hope as they head back to Boston for game five. So give it up to the young Jalen Brown, just 21 years of old, taking it by the reins and saying, look, I'm going to play with some grit. I'm going to get going in this second half to get my team ready for game five. And at number three, Chris Paul, CP3. CP3 has been maligned throughout his career for struggling at times in the clutch, but he came up big in one of the biggest moments of his career in game four in Oakland as the Rockets beat Golden State. Chris Paul was outstanding 27 points, including eight in the fourth quarter. James Harden looked winded, didn't really have it going offensively in the fourth, so Chris Paul stepped up and was absolutely tremendous and he did it all on a sore foot. Notice, you haven't heard about the foot. With Steph Curry, who I love, struggles, everybody blames it on his injuries, everybody blames it on the knee, but Chris Paul is playing on a bad wheel and he went out there and played tremendously to give the Rockets a chance to get back to the NBA finals. At number two, his teammate, James Harden. That's right, 30 points in game four. I know he struggled offensively down the stretch, but Harden has been great. Harden's reached a level where we're criticizing him for scoring 27 points and doing things like that. He's averaging 29 and a half points in this Western Conference final and people think he's struggling. He's doing it on 45 and a half percent shooting from the field. That's his most accurate, his best field goal percentage of any of his series in the playoffs this season. So Harden is getting it done and not only offensively, surprise, surprise, but in game four, he was outstanding defensively. That's right, he set the bar higher now. Nobody's gonna let him get away with those terrible defensive outings anymore. That Matador defense go by me, he showed in game four in Oakland that he can de-up when he wants to pick the pocket of Kevin Durant, made a few steals, got in people's way, did a good job on that end of the floor. That's why Harden is number two and at number one, LeBron James, and it ain't even close. LeBron James has been absolutely outstanding after getting an F from yours truly in game one against Boston. He has been tremendous, 37 and a half points a game in the last three games, 59% shooting and oh, outstanding, turn back the clock, throwback defense in games two and three, three and four in Cleveland, blocking shots, blocking passes, getting deflections, setting the tone for the oldest dirt, Cleveland Cavaliers to play great defense and win those two games in Cleveland to go back to Boston with a chance to return to the finals for the fourth straight year. LeBron James hands down the number one player in the post-season player power rankings. All right, we welcome in Tim Hardaway, five-time NBA All-Star, five-time All-NBA player and most recently was an assistant coach on Stan Van Gundy's staff in Detroit for the past few years. Tim, how you doing? I'm great, I'm great, I can't complain, man. Just comes from San Francisco, got inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame and my family was dead, Mully and Mitch was dead, so we had a great time. Well, congratulations on that and I know your teammate Chris Mullen said that you should be in every Hall of Fame, meaning just the Bay Area Hall of Fame but the NBA Hall of Fame. What are your feelings on that? Mitch is in, Mitch Richmond, Chris Mullen, you haven't gotten in yet, most people think you're one of the greatest snubs ever to not be in the Hall of Fame but what are your feelings on it? Well, you know what? At first I was kind of upset at first and when I didn't make it the first couple of years and then I come to realize I have no control over that. You know, whoever got control over it, they got control over it and if they want me in, I get in but in that, I think nobody can really just push anybody's hand or try to make them do what they don't want to do. So I don't have no control over it. It is what it is when you just walk around the country and people say you should be in the Hall of Fame, basketball Hall of Fame and there's no doubt about it. You should be there and while you're not in there, I tell them the same thing. I have no control over it and we just move on and try to control what we can control and that's what I try to do. One thing a lot of people don't realize is that you made, as I mentioned, your five-time R-NBA and in 1997, you were first team and the first team was Grant Hill, Hakeem Melajuan, Carl Malone, Michael Jordan and you. I mean, that's a heck of a team. Do you feel like, I mean, besides the Hall of Fame, do you feel like you get your due historically and people kind of recognize how much you were one of the top players? Well, you know, right now, a lot of these guys, kids, we didn't play when it was all. Social media, we didn't even have NBA TV back in the day. So now they got it on YouTube and they gotta find us on YouTube, find us on different Google and all that type of stuff. But back then, when it happened and that stuff, but now they got all that stuff, now where everything is so escalated and so many rounds that you can see it each and every way, you see a crossover now, 17 different ways, you know, you see somebody go to the basket, 17 different ways, you know, they like, I'm looking at James Hart now, they showing his dunk on Dream on Green, they showing it how he went past and got five times, you know, this ankle, that ankle, this ankle, that ankle, you know, we didn't have that back in the day. So, you know, you can't do nothing about it. You can't do nothing about it. Like say, you just move on, you know, kids, you hear kids talking about this person, talk about that person and I just laugh because there's no way that you can, first of all, I don't argue anymore, but you can't really make these guys or kids understand what we did back in the day because they weren't born back in the day. They live right now, they looking at LeBron, they looking at Chris Paul, they looking at James Hart, they was looking at Kobe, which they supposed to. And I'm happy they doing that, you know, but, you know, I don't give my just due because there was no social media, but, you know, the VA guys, the true NBA guys that know about the NBA understand, you know, what happened, what I did and how I did it. I was gonna ask you because you've been coaching, you coach Brandon Jennings, you got Reggie Jackson in Detroit, and obviously, you know, a lot of the current players, do they understand how good you were, not the fans, but the players? Yes, yes they do, yes, yes they do, they come up and say, you know, they talk to me, you know, they ask me, you know, how did I do cross over, they ask me, you know, how was it back in the day when you played, you know, with the Chan check rules and how did you develop your game? You know, I just talked to them about, you know, we play a lot of one-on-one, a lot of these guys don't play a lot of one-on-one to get their games together, we play a lot of one-on-one, a lot of two-on-two, and we just played, you know, we didn't think about who was gonna win or how big was gonna beat us. One thing we wanted to do is get better on offense and get better on defense and see, you know, how people like to play on offense, you know, how I could get Chris Mullin and Mitch Rich from the ball at this particular time when they're coming off the downstream or when they're coming off the curl, you know, when I could read their minds and I know when they're going back door, they just look at me and, okay, I'm going to back door him now. So, you know, just to chemistry and to camaraderie, that's why we played the game and after practice or worked on our game after practice to make each other understand if he plays this way, this is how we're going to go to the back door. If he plays this way, we're gonna face and come back for a dribble handoff. You know, I like to get the ball right here at the shoot at the three-point line or when I curl, I like to have him receive the ball here. So, you know, that's the tendency that we love to have going into games, knowing each other, you know, inside and out where we need the ball and how we need to score. So that, I mean, kids, they don't do that. But yeah, that's what I talk to them about. You know, you got to talk to your teammates. Don't be afraid to talk to your teammates. It's not a big, a lot of these guys take the criticism tough. It's constructive criticism, I tell them. You know, yeah, it's the heat of the battle, but it's always constructive criticism. Like Draymond Green, he gets on his guys but it's constructive criticism, you know. He's telling them what they need to do and how they need to do it for them to win a basketball game and his guys understand that. Most guys on other teams wouldn't understand that they go on the hole or they go on the shell and they'd be like, he's singing on me out. But no, that's the guy that wants to win and that loves to win. You mentioned the crossover a few times. You were known, I was known as your signature move. They called it the killer crossover. I remember in fact once I was talking on ESPN Sports Center about the greatest crossovers of all time and you texted me like, you better remember my crossover, so tell me about your move and who inspired it or what inspired it and how you kind of perfected it. Well, you know, coming out of high school, college, from the city of Chicago, you had to have a move. You had to have something and that's all we did was dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble to perfect the move. We played one-on-one constantly and back then, you know, it was hand checking, holding, grabbing, pushing, shoving. So you had to perfect the move to get by somebody and I just perfected the move. You know, I didn't know what I was doing at the time. I was just doing a move where I could just get to the rim and make a play for my team or myself and it developed, it really developed in college when we, you know, after practice, we would play one-on-one, two-on-two and I'd get to the rim very easily with that move and make a layup or get to the rim and pass it out to a team made for a jump shot. And then in NBA, you know, when I started really doing it almost every night and, you know, the guys around NBA saw it, they was like, you know, hey, Matt, he was like, hey, he got a kill across over and that's where it went. But, excuse me. Were you the first one, were you, I mean, I assume some guys did it before but were you the first one kind of to do it? Well, you know, Archie Griffin, longtime LA guy, went to the Philadelphia, I think I traced to Philly or New York but Archie Griffin, every time he's seen it, he lets me know about that. Yeah, you know, I had to cross over first and I was like, okay, Archie, the guys don't know about Archie Griffin. Y'all need to look him up. He had a nice crossover too. But you know what, I learned, my idol was Isaiah Thomas when I was growing up out of Sydney, Chicago and I built my game after his game. I just watched him, how he dribble the ball, how he studied people, how he mesmerized people before he, you know, he took the ball to the basket. He go left-hand, right-hand. A lot of people don't know that I used to dunk on a lot of people going to the rim. So, you know, I just out of my game and him just the toughness, just being small. I always have to shoot over people. People are always telling you that you can do this, you can do that. And I had to go out there and prove myself each and every night to show people and I had that confidence each and every night to prove to them that I can do whatever you say I can do. Shoot over, I came. Shoot over Patrick Hewitt. Shoot over anybody that I go to the hole against, you know, six feet, nine, 68, seven feet, it didn't matter. I just had to just show you that I can make a shot over the big fellers, floaters and all that. So, I was out of my game after him and then, you know, I saw, you know, you look at all these guys from the East Coast, like Pearl Washington, you know, he shoot somebody off the screen when they played Georgetown one day. I was like, wow, did you see that? He got real low across the guy over real low and he didn't put it between his legs, but he just faked one way and crossed him over. I started doing that, I couldn't do it that way. So, I put it in between my legs and just went in between my legs and did it that way. So, you know, that's how I perfected the real crossover then after I saw him. That was like my freshman year in college. But, you know, you just look at people and you pick up stuff from different people and take it to another level. Now, one guy, especially among the young people that's known for his crossover with Allen Iverson. You've been critical of Iverson's crossover though, saying it was basically a carry. Carry in the trap. You know, I never said nobody else I just came down and did. I mean, I mean, it is what it is. I mean, it's not critical of nobody. I'm just telling the truth. You know, everybody think, you know, do you being, you critical or, or you saying something bad or negative? No, I'm not saying nothing negative or bad. I'm just saying mine was better than his. I came down. I didn't carry. I didn't set my man up. I just did it. It was in a Florida gang. That's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to criticize nobody. I'm not trying to be negative to nobody. I'm just telling the truth. And, you know, and people want me to get a truth. I'm just giving the truth out there. Now, the player's handles today are crazy. I mean, you got Tyree Irving, Steph Curry, Chris Paul, and all that. And I think one of the reasons that the handles are the way they are today is because they let dudes carry, which I don't think was going on in your day and before certainly. Is that, is that fair? I mean, are dudes basically carrying all the time? No question. No question. I tell you, I give you a prime example. Sometimes Kevin Durant gets a ball and he carries and he moves four or five steps into the into the lane, you know? Yeah, he carries the ball between the dribble. He has picked it up and moved his feet four or five times and then dribble again. We like, that's a carry ref. I mean, even though that's his move, that's what he's been doing, but that's still a carry. You know, Tyree Irving, he got handles, you know? Kimber Walker, he got handles, you know? Who else out there that got handles? It's over here without carrying it. He's over here without carrying it. Yeah, without carrying it. Chris Paul got handles without carrying. Sometimes, Jayne's hard, yeah, he does carry at times and he travels with the ball at times. So, I mean, but you know, it's hard to dictate what's a carry and what's not a carry until, because the refs are wrapped up in the game. They wrapped up in so much stuff. You know, they wrapped up in and who I gotta call a foul here. I gotta watch this guy pushing this way. They wrapped up in so much stuff, the referees. So, when it does happen, it happens real quick too. It happens real quick. And if you're not on it, you know, they won't call it. Like the other day, we's at the game and we saw Draymond Green double dribble. The ref called it three seconds late, but it was the correct call. And Draymond knew that he double dribble. So, I mean, sometimes that stuff happens so quick and the refs are getting back on defense and transition. They gotta watch what they're going through. They don't want to run over the coach or some of the players or any of the fans. And so, Dave, I mean, it's kind of tough. Now, I'll say Kairi has the best handle of all time. What do you think of that? Of all time? Now, he has nice handles. I mean, right now he has great handles. I mean, because let me tell you that you know, the rules are different today than they was when we played. So with his handles, you know, we would be able to get up into him and probably, you know, put our forearm into him and be more physical with him. All right? But I mean, you can hand check back then. Now you can hand check. So he's super dangerous now. You know, you can't even touch him. So if you touch him, I mean, it's a foul. No question is gonna be a foul. If I was playing this error and Isaiah with the handles that we had and Chris Jackson, I'd do right with the handles that we had. I mean, we would excel big time in this error. Yeah, I was gonna ask you that because, you know, people look at this as the era of the point guard because you got all these dudes putting up these all star numbers. And obviously you got some good point guards but I've always said, I'm not sure these guys are better than the point guards of the 90s or even the 80s but I just think when you played, you had a center or a power forward who was gonna score. And, you know, you guys did post entry passes. You had post players that scored. So there weren't a lot of point guards that were like the first option on their teams. Whereas nowadays, you don't really have that many bigs that score. So I think you got and point guards over dribble now. They dominate the ball a lot more than y'all did. Y'all dribble, like you said, y'all dribble with a purpose. It wasn't just 20 seconds dribbling and then either take a shot or pass to the man that's gonna shoot. So I think if y'all had played this way, y'all would have put up the same type of numbers that a lot of these guys are doing. Is that fair or not? That's fair. You know, I think, you know, it's two ways to look at that. I wanna say that when we played, we thought about, because the era and how we was hand-checked, we need to get there quick because we don't want nobody to hand-check us and get up into us and spears into ways where we didn't wanna go. So we had to make a move quick and do it quick and get to the hole quick. And when we dribbled, yes, we dribbled before purpose. We dribbled because the guy was going to do a cross screen and then we had to wait for the down screen to go get him and we had to throw it into the low post. You know, Don Nelson gave me a rule. He said, Tim, we know you can take your man every time. There's no question about that. But if there's not a fast break and you pitch it up, pitch it up, go through, let the ball swing, let everybody touch it. When you get it the second time, you can do whatever you want to. Then you can get the ball, you can dance a little bit, you can go ahead and do your thing. But he said, but you gotta swing the ball. I was like, okay, so I swung the ball and when I got the ball, and that's why I tell young guys today, I say, you don't always get the ball. The ball won't always find you. Once you give it up, the ball won't always find you. If you swing the ball, run the office and come back around on the other side, the ball won't find you. Once you find you, then you can do your thing because the defense is not geared up or set up to stop just you. And I think now the defense, now these guys, I geared to stop these guys because they want to want to ball dominant now. But I'm gonna tell you this, my dad told me this a long time ago. There's not no position on the court. Everybody is everybody. Everybody is one man, everybody's two man, everybody's three man. You just gotta perfect your game the way you need to perfect your game. All right, look at the Golden State Warriors. They got this, what you call it, something five, okay? They go out there, yeah, the half and the five. All of them guys are guards. They were not centers, okay? They play like, so there's Dream on Green play like a center. Anthony Davis play like a guard. You know, even cousins play like a guard. So your game has to be a all around game to get around people off the dribble, make a play off the dribble, shooting threes now, shooting pull-up jumpers now. Everybody's game has to revolve around being a guard's game now. Because if you can't be like a guard now, you can't go out there and play the basketball game the way it's played today. And my dad told me this, you know, when I was in like in seventh grade and it's coming to true now that everybody has to play just like everybody. I mean, a guard could post up, like I used to post up. A guard could post up anybody, but that don't mean that he asked him to shoot the ball just because he'd want to make a play. Dream on Green post up, he don't shoot the ball. He's letting the office run so he can make a play. So that's the way the game is today. Well, people debate what era, like, you know, the 90s when Jordan was dominant versus today's game. Which one is better? What are your thoughts on, you know, was the basketball better back when you played or is it better today? Well, you know what? We had to think the game back in the day because there was a legal defense, okay? And you couldn't go down and double team without the ball. You couldn't be in a zone without the ball. So I think today's game is just play, play, play, play, play, but back then it was a thinking game, you know? You had to think of how you've had to, you straddle jazz, how you had to guard somebody. Then you had to straddle jazz, how when you wanted to come down and double team and rotate and we could put bodies on people back then. You know, you could really, you know, if a guy come down a hole, you could really, you know, check them. That wasn't a foul. You know, it was running, I tell people it was running like a running back, running through the middle of the line, middle through the line. He had to protect himself. Every time you went through that lane, you pass the ball, you went through that lane. If you didn't protect yourself, you're real concerned. So, you know, it was totally different. It was totally different, but you know, I like the game the way it is today. You know, I like them running and gunning and shooting. I think sometimes some people shoot, you know, you're talking about a heat check. I think somebody shoot too much for a heat check, but you know, that's the way the game is today. And it's an enjoyable game. I mean, whoever gets hot at the right time in a course of a game, then you're in trouble. It's hard to stop them, especially, you know, like those say words or like Houston Rockets did last night. You know, they kept the pressure on them all night long. They kept the pressure on them. And that's what you got to do. And if the doves come out and you can sustain a third quarter, then you win the game. Now, there is a lot of great point guards in your era. I mean, you faced John Stockton, Gary Payton, Jason Kidd, Iverson, Stephon Marbury, and a little bit of magic in Isaiah even later in their careers. Who was the toughest guy for you to play against? Oh, man, you know, I called on Isaiah at the end of his career. Magic at the end. I wasn't sticking magic. He's six, nine. So, you know, and I always say this, you know, a lot of people don't give him his chest to do. And that's on Ross Strickland. Ross Strickland was one of the guys there with those stuff that was tough for me to guard because he had handles. He gets to the hole. He can make plays at the rim. But another guy, Kevin Johnson, he was very tough to guard, you know, coming down. They helped me. That was his problem. Right. That was his problem. He just couldn't stay healthy. But, you know, it was hard to guard him too when he was healthy. Those two guys gave me problems, you know, the glove, six, six, six, seven long arms. You know, when he was in it, he was in it. He picked you up for a court. It's a nation's defense to score, you know, with the best of them. So, you know, those three guys, I will say, gave me problems. And the two guards with the Knicks, you know, I wouldn't be giving them, they just do either. You know, we had some great battles with the Knicks. Now you're talking about. With Charlie Ward. With Charlie Ward and Chris with Chiles. Chris with Chiles. Okay. They're just physical and defending. They just physical and just defending and all that. And, you know, I mean, I'm just talking about what them two on defense, they were, you know, they worked me. They worked me hard. And I love, you know, taking the challenge with them. And that's what made the rival so great between Miami Heat and Goats. They were, I mean, Miami Heat and New York Knicks. Yeah. Yeah. Now, when you played in Golden State, your teams were coached by Dian Nelson. A lot of people give Mike Dancehoney credit for kind of sparking this modern basketball era. But I know you feel like Dian Nelson gets flighted in that regard. No question. No question. Again, we're back to YouTube. We're back to social media, you know? The kids and everybody wasn't born and wasn't watching TV because we was on the West Coast. They didn't see us on the West Coast. What was that? NBC, Game of the Week. And then maybe Starden, EFT and Starden, that, you know, had us on TNT. No, it was TVS. I'm sorry, it was TVS. TVS, yeah. You know, so they really wasn't watching us. And on the West Coast, they was, you know, they wasn't up late at night at 10 30, 11 30, watching us play. So, you know, Dian Nelson, our dream, Mike Green was Tom Tober, you know? Tom Tober used to bring the ball up. That was our point forward or our point center. And we used to run offense with him just the way to go and stay worried, run offense now. And, you know, Dian Nelson don't get it just due because nobody really saw what he was trying to do. The same way, going to stay worried and Houston Rock is our plan today. That's the way we used to play. And we used to call it control chaos, you know, offense. People didn't know what we was doing. We just a motion. We just motion. We just moved without the ball, back screen, come up. You know, it was hard for them to switch because back then there was no switch. You know, you switch us. Now, why didn't you guys switch? Why did you guys switch so much? Because of the positions? Because of the position. So say like a seven foot guy is not going to switch out on Magic Johnson and leave a six-five guy on the screen. You had to get over the screen. You had to push over the screen and play your man. You know? I mean, you know, you got say like a two guard, six, seven coming out and you putting your six, seven guard on Patrick Ewing and you're sending his guard and Alan Houston on the trails free will. Come on. Yeah. You know, that was unheard of because if they did switch out on me, like if you six, seven, six, eight, you switch out on me, we used to go to the back. But don't shoot no threes. Go to the back and make somebody help. Pass it. Pass it. Somebody's going to be open. And that's what we did. And so there was no switching. So that's why motion offense was good. You try to switch. We look back, even if you didn't try to switch, if your hair was turned back then, if your hair was turned, we've thrown bullets right past your ear or bounce past right past your leg for a layup. And that's what you got to have camaraderie. And that's why you got to know your teammates and what they're doing out there. Like don't say words. They know what they're doing. We knew what we was doing out there. You know, they slip a lot. We slipped a lot. So, you know, Dan Sony did, you know, the accolades or saying that he's the one that invented this. No, it was Don Nelson all day long. So if you, if those, some of those teams you had in Golden State, I mean, y'all won 55 games one year. You know, you have some success, but never could really get over the hump. If you took that team in today's era, how good do you think y'all would have been? We would have been real good because of the rules. The rules messed us up. You know, I mean, you had small four. You had Mitch Guard, Sam Perkins at that time. Or you had Chris Mullingard, James Worthier, Sam Perkins. You know, Sam Perkins, Perkins said he left. You know, we switched off on Vladivost. He's seven feet. You know, the rules today would have definitely benefited us when we were played, if we was playing this era because we, that's the way we played. That's the way we tried to manipulate the rules. And we get caught on a lot of illegal defenses too. So then we had to go now, we had double team because there was bigger people that we had to play against. But, you know, that was that era. We did some things in that era. And I think if we would have stayed together a long time, because, you know, we meditated Mitch to sack the billiards. But if we would have played together a long time, we had something going and we would have figured it out. Someway we would have figured it out how to get over that hump and make it work in our favor. But like you said, today's era, yeah, we would have fitted very well in this era. We probably wouldn't have been, we would have been right up at the top of the echelon in this era right now. What's your best Dian Nelson story? Oh man, you know, Nellie had a lot of, he had a lot of, you know, sometimes he'd come in and say, you know, we had a tee time at, you know, 1130, come in. All right, let whoever can make a half short, half court shot, there'd be no practice. You know, y'all really, I'm gonna tell you this. We had, we had, sometimes we had quizzes. All right, and you had to, everybody had to know how to draw on the board, the way a coach draws on the board and do, and draw up a play. So if you couldn't do the wiggly life of dribbling, that was like $5 off. If you didn't go and knew how to draw in line for a guy to pick and set your man up to come over and just draw the diagrams, that was deduction off the paper. So, but this thing, so we used to practice this way because we had a bunch of plays and we had to know each other's position. If you didn't know each other position, like Mitch had to play five, Chris Moeller had to play one, I had to play four, Tom Toba had to play three, and the center had to play two. So we had, if we call it out of play, and if we didn't know that play, we had to run sprints. Wow. I mean, if one person messed up, we had to run sprints. So that's why we was in a game. We knew what we had, when we called out a play and we said, all right, so-and-so, you had to two, so-and-so, you had to three, so-and-so, you had to four, so-and-so, you bring the ball up. We knew exactly where we need to go, and the other team was confused. And they was like, well, what are y'all doing? I said, you understand in one second. And we just knew it. We didn't have to call the time now. So, you know, Don Nelson, he was very innovative. He knew the game. That said, now, he was always funny. And I saw him on the, in the pitch, you know, he lost all that weight. He's looking very good. He's living in Maui now. And, you know, he's always fun, always fun. And I always had love to have good time. Now, you also played a little bit with Luttrell Spreewell. You got any great stories about Spree? Spree? Spree was fun. Spree never touched the basketball all summer long. I've never seen this before. Never touched the basketball all summer long. And then come to practice. First day of practice, no came and shot with us and nothing like that. Came in first day of practice and it looked like he played all summer long. Worked on his game all summer long. I mean, he was just, he was just, we call him Gazelle. He always was in shape. Good guy, always good guy, always loved to play when he came to the gym. Got there early, worked on his game, stayed sometimes late, worked on his game. But he was, you know, Luttrell, he was funny because he loved, he loved electronics. He loved electronics. He loved his, he loved diagramming, you know, hit rims and all that type of stuff. He loves, he loves fast cars. I'll tell you one story that he, we was inside, we inside the arena in the locker room. He parked his car where the guys parked their car right now, but the locker room was over the same way. We could hear Luttrell coming in from outside because that's how loud his music was. He's like, are you deaf? He's like, no, I can just fine. I mean, he just played his music loud all the time. I'm like, I can hear his music at times when I was on the plane and I can get hear his music through his, through his headphones. I'm like, dude, you got some loud headphones. Yeah, but not Luttrell. He's, you know, it's funny stories that we got to keep inside. Can't a lot of things you can't say. Now you were involved, well, let me say this because I know your career stats are like almost 18 points a game and over eight assists a game. But when I look at your numbers, your best seasons statistically were all like your second, third and fourth seasons, I think. Before you had a knee injury, you had a serious knee injury and missed the 93, 94 season. Did that injury take anything out of you? You still had some great years after that, but did that take anything out of you? It did, the first couple of years it did. And then, you know, not playing minutes, well, getting some playing time when Rick Adamman came in kind of hurt me too because I knew I could still play this game. And I think a lot of people thought I was finished. I knew I wasn't finished, I knew that I could still play. So they traded me to Miami Heat and it went from there. And I tell folks, it's not, I don't think it's probably one other person that made all-star team that had a fatal injury like I did at ACL and that was Bernard King. He came back and went to one all-star game. I came back and went to three all-star games after that injury and, you know, all NBA team, first team and second team. And yeah, first team and second team after that. So, you know, I knew what I could do. You know, it was credit to Pat Rowley, of course, bringing me in and saying, hey, you know, run my team the way it's supposed to be run. And, you know, another coach just gave me the keys to the car and told me to drive it. So, you know, I had- What was that like playing for Riley? Cause I know he was hard on dude, especially coming from Don Nelson, where he was probably easier on players. Well, yeah, you know, no, I'm gonna tell you this. Now he wasn't that easy on players now. He was using stuff on players too. I mean, at times he knew what to get on you and then but now he was laid back. Then he was prepared, just like Pat Rowley, always prepared, always know what he wants, always know what his team needs. But you know, you know, they were like practices like three hours, practice, you know, four hours. Now, you know, it was a lot of learning going into that. You know, you're looking at Sam, you're not on your feet for three, four hours. You, we weren't on our feet. We were watching Sam. We was talking about a lot of things where we could do, where we shouldn't do, how we should play, play this way, that way. But it wasn't like, you know, it was four hours on our feet. No, no, no, no. I asked Pat one day, I said, well, why don't we practice for two and a half hours? He said the game is two and a half hours. I was like, okay, that's self-explanatory right there. You know, I mean, if you can't play for two and a half hours and sustain yourself for two and a half hours, you, I mean, you can't be like, I want to play 48 minutes. So at that time you got to play 45, 46 minutes and you got to be ready to play that at a particular time. So we was all, our whole team was ready to play whoever you put in the team on me on the court at a particular time, let's play. But we was always well prepared. I liked it, you know, it was, because I grew up that way. I grew up bumping, grinding, physical, playing hard in the trenches. I grew up that way in Chicago. And, you know, it was great for me. I loved it. I loved being, you know, prepared each and every day. I love practicing, working on our games. To me it was different, you know, because that, because all my life, that's what I did, you know, and, but you know, but it wasn't like what people said, you know? I mean, he, he wants you being shaped. He wants your body fat to be down because he wanted the optimal of your, your career. He wants you to be at the optimum shape. So he, so when you out there playing, you have, you have no gripes. You won't get hurt. You're going to be in tip top shape and you're going to be able to do what you're able to do like you did your first two or three years in your career or when you was in college. So that's what you want you to be. And that's what, that's what we was. And I had no gripes about it. I enjoyed. Now he was known for motivating, motivating players. Like his pre-game speeches, sometimes he'd use props and do crazy stuff. What was kind of the most, the craziest thing he did in a pre-game speech, which are? Well, you know, after the game, he did, you know, before games, pre-game speeches was, he got me hyped. Just, you know, I was always, always ready to play games cause I just love to play the game. But he won pre-game speech. He was talking about, you know, so many, but he was talking about how the Lakers and, you know, got to game seven with the ball to Celtics and everything. And he said that, you know, before that game, Kareem, you know, he got killed. You could tell Kareem didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear nothing, nothing, nothing. They came to practice and practice, they butt off. And you could tell that they were so focused that whatever he was talking about or about to say, he didn't say, but at that particular game. But he said, he was talking anyway. And, you know, he knew at that particular time, he was like, I don't need to, I need to stop talking and just let them go out there and play. And they went out there and played and they won. That's the game they won. Another thing, another game, he said, Tim, he said, we got all that traded there. We all went to our different respectable other teams and won. I went to go to state one, Dan Marley went to Phoenix and won. Zo went to Charlotte and won. We went to, what else we went to? We went to a couple of places and won. And we in New York, and you could tell, he really won this game. He said, Tim, just go out there and tell the fellas, you know, get this one for me. I said, all right, I got you. We went out there. That thing we bought about like 20. And you could just tell in his eyes that he was loving that, you know, and that's what we did for each other, man. It was like family there. We just played and, you know, he had everything for us. He had everything for us there. Massages, you know, whatever we needed to stay healthy and stay ready, that's what he does for you and his teammates. He loves his teammates. That's why he don't like to make changes. You don't see him making changes. You know, he loves his team right there. He always believes that they don't do the job and that's the way he believes. And if a lot of people trust him, you go out there and just play because he trusts you. He wouldn't trust you if he wasn't there. If you wasn't there, he wouldn't trust you. I mean, if he was there, he trusts you. He got to trust you because he brought you there. So that's what I know about him. Your rivalries, you mentioned the Knicks, that was your greatest rivalry when you were in Miami. Tell me something about those series that we don't know. Those were the rivalries, I should say that, rivalry. Ah, man, it was crazy, man. It was crazy. We as probably two guys loved each other. That was Pat and Zo. Everybody else on each team hated each other. I mean, we're a few each other at a restaurant during the summer, we wouldn't speak to one another. We wouldn't talk to one another. We wouldn't shake each other's hands. If we did, it was phony. It was just that type of rivalry. Sometimes, I think sometimes today, some of those guys and us, we still had grudges with each other, I think. And that's a shame to say, but that's the way the game was. And, but yeah, we, I mean, it was- Was that around the league like that? Like any teams you had rivalries, was that how it was? Cause obviously it's not like that today. No, it wasn't like every team had that. That was just the heat in the mix because I think they, you know, what happened with Pat leaving there, coming to Miami, that was the whole thing. And they took a section of that. And they wanted to, you know, they wanted to destroy us. Excuse me, whichever way they wanted to. And, you know, physically and mentally, we wasn't having it, you know, we wasn't having it. We just had a nastier attitude just like they did. So that's why the hard fault games was hard fault games. And, you know, each and every game was hard fault. You might blow the team out here and there, but in the playoffs, yeah, everybody's playing hard and wanted to win and wanted to destroy you. Yeah, those were some hard fault games. I remember Jeff Van Gundy grabbing onto the leg of Alonso, Courtney, I think Zoë and Larry Johnson, it was getting into it. What was that, take me through that story, that game, that was crazy. Man, that was crazy. That was crazy, man. That was really crazy. We still trying to figure out why that happened. But, you know, it was just a crazy, crazy atmosphere. It was going on because Patrick couldn't play because he was hurt at that particular time. And I think the most physical guy that could play offensively and defensively against Zoë was Larry Johnson at that particular time. So Larry played what's playing as Zoë and he was being physical with Zoë. And at times, you know, they let you do particular things in the playoffs versus, you know, just in the playoffs. And, you know, they just, you know, it just took a toll on both of them. Both of them was into each other, both of them was following each other and the refs just let it go, let it go, let it go, and game five, game six, that's the way it was. They just went at it. And they both really just lost their minds, basically. And then you had Jeff and Gunby. I think he didn't realize what he was doing because now you don't go after the other guy or another team. You go after your own guy and back him up. He went after Zoë and he, you know what? He even came out, that was foolish of him because he could not only hurt himself but he could have hurt Zoë too. But, you know, but you at the time, the rivalry, you mad at this person, you mad at that person, then you, then a fight breaks out, then you just, the only thing you can do is just, you know, he probably slipped and fell and whatever, but you know, he just grabbed onto the first team, grabbed one too, you know? And actually, that really stopped the fight because everybody was like, what are you doing, Jeff? Everybody laughing at him. Yeah, everybody laughing at him. What are you doing, Jeff? When you saw him on Elizo's leg. That's the way I was. I'm like, what are you doing? You can hurt him. What are you doing? You trying to tackle him? What are you doing? I don't, you know, what are you doing? But, you know, everybody at that particular time, you, like I said, you don't know what's gonna happen. You lose your mind. And the first thing the reaction is, let me stop him from fighting my player. And like I said, he probably didn't wanna get hit. So at first he tried to grab him by the waist and he just slipped and fell and landed on his legs and kept holding his legs. So that's what probably happened. If a tag team match, Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley against Elizo and PJ Brown, who wins that? Man, you know, back and Charles Oakley, when he was young and really, really strong in here, you know, you got, you got, I go, I go, oh, you know, I love Zo, I love PJ, you know, I tell you this, Patrick's not gonna do that cause that's Zo boy. So they not, they not gonna do that. The ones that really gonna be going at it. And they, and you know what? They love each other too, is PJ and Oak. So they're just friends now too. So yeah, they're good friends now too. So, you know, you never, you actually never seen them for getting into any type of stuff. You never seen, they just play hard against one another. So, you know, it was, it was, it was always something else. But them four never, they just played hard. They bang, bang, bang, push, push, push, fault and play the game the way it was. Slap down, gave you hard fouls, but they never got into a shallowing match. They never, you know, got into a track talking match. They never did. I always used to feel like, cause you guys, you know, I felt like Patrick had a mental edge over Zo because you know, Patrick was older. He kind of had been a mentor to Zo and cause I thought y'all had better teams but they would beat y'all a lot in the playoffs, you know, like, did you feel that way too? Right, yeah, yeah. You know, Patrick, he made timely shots and made timely moves at the end of ball games to put them up. You know, just like Alan Houston making that shot, you know, it hits around five times before he can go in. You know, they always made the timely moves at the end of the ball games to beat us. But we, you know, we put ourselves in that predicament because we could have went down on the other hand and made shots too. So, but we was up or was tied up, whatever. But yeah, Patrick, when you seven feet, even though you 6'10", 6'11", and you the best shot block in the NBA, seven feet is still seven feet. And Patrick was seven feet. And he, you know, he was still just a little bit longer than though, just a little bit. And, you know, he could shoot over him, you know, shoot a little floater over him, whatever. But he was just a little bit taller in there. Now you, you played obviously against Jordan and you coached against LeBron. So you see him close up. Everybody debates, which one's better? Which one's the goat? Where do you stand on that discussion, LeBron versus Michael? You know, it's no choice. To me is Michael, you know. To me is Michael. In the air we play in the end, you know, what Michael did, you know, how he did it, the bumps and bruises he had to go through, you know, the mental stage that he, you know, that it took him to, you know, it's a, to me is Michael. It's gonna always be Michael because I played against him, you know. And I've taken nothing away from LeBron. LeBron, my God, love watching him play. Love watching him orchestrate everything out there on the court, you know, you know, the big dunk, I mean, a big block shot. You know, you know, he's 69 and he could control the game just like Magic Johnson could. He's got a better jumping than Magic. But you know, you can't take, I mean, Michael, six championships went there six times, won six times, got MVP six times. But you know, like I said, you can't, you still can't take nothing away from LeBron. His era was different from this era. And, you know, we would never, we would never see him go against each other. We would never see that happen. We'd always speculate. But, you know, and if you've got to understand, Michael came in after his sophomore year. LeBron came in after high school. So LeBron got two more years ahead of Michael. I think George might even, I think he played three. I think he was after his junior year. Yeah, yeah. You know what it was after his junior year. Yeah, exactly, junior, I'm sorry. So LeBron got three more years in the NBA ahead of George. So a lot of people don't put that in perspective either. So there's a lot of things that go into that longevity, you know, you know, and Michael was hurt for a year too. You know, he was out for a whole year before. I mean, like, you know, a bunch of games before he came back and did what he did in the playoffs. So, you know, there's a lot of things going into that. But, you know, me, it's going to always be Michael and that ever. So before you go, I want to ask you about what's going on now in the NBA with the playoffs. Who do you have in the East? Do you think LeBron gets the finals again or you think Boston can pull this out? I'll tell you this, man. If you get to game seven, you can't bet against LeBron to me. It gives a game seven with these guys, how young these guys are in Boston. I think that I wouldn't bet against LeBron in game seven. So I think these next two games, especially for the Boston Celtics are very, very critical. These next two games, they got to win tonight. They got to win tonight. It's like a fresh game night. They lose tonight, it's over with. So, you know, I think LeBron is going to make it to the finals, but I don't think that he's going to have enough to beat either Golden State or Houston. I just don't get the team. Who do you like in that series, Golden State? I like Golden State. I like Golden State. You know, like if Igor Dolly come back, he heard him, you know, that heard him not being there last night. You know, he does a lot of things out there on the basketball court. I'm not talking about scoring. I'm just talking about just his intangibles, you know, tipping the ball away, 50-50 balls, diving for balls, putting your body in front of folks, blocking shots, coming up with the key rebound and laying it up, you know, playing good defense on people just a hand up. That really hurt him not being there because they had to play a lot of minutes. Those guys had to play a lot of minutes. And, you know, it was just tough on them. It was tough on them last night, but I think they, but if, like I always say, Golden State, all of them got to stay healthy. All of them. They've got to stay healthy. If they don't stay healthy, they don't win. They don't win. So, but if they stay healthy, if they're healthy, they win. They win this. But, you know, now the momentum is back. I think in Houston's court, they just got to come out and play like they wanted instead of, you know, being lackadaisical. I think they get, if Houston come out and play harder and play like the way they did last night, tomorrow, they can get their game tomorrow, but they got to come out and not be lackadaisical, not be, you know, pass up and, you know, not what's, don't know what's going on. They got to come out and play the same way, you know, and that, that, that. I wanted to ask you before, before you go, cause you mentioned Chris Jackson early, Mack Mood, Abdul Rahul earlier, in his handle and all that. Phil Jackson said a few years ago, he compared Steph to Chris Jackson or Mack Mood. And people, people kind of mocked him like, man, that's crazy. But you played against Mack Mood. Do you think that was a fair comparison? Like in today's NBA, do you think he could have been a Steph Curry? I'm on, see, they, I don't think everybody understand and what Phil Jackson is saying. We talking about the quick release, but Mood had a quick release. He had come off right off the drill, Mood and gone, the ball was gone and it was all net. Same way with Steph. He had come off, and next thing you know, he's shooting the ball real quick. Before you get a hand up, the ball is in the rim already, in the hoop already. That's what Phil Jackson was saying. Phil Jackson saying he got Mack Mood had handled and he gets that ball up very, very quick and he can stop on the dime and shoot it on the dime. That's what that reminds Steph Curry of Mack Mood. That's the way Steph Curry comes down. He comes down, he might do a move, put it between his legs and then stop and pop. You know, and he gets to the hole too. That's the way Mack Mood did too. That's, see, people get upset about him or Mood. Well, he wasn't doing this, he wasn't doing that and didn't get off to something else. Now, we're talking about the quick release because yes, both of them had a quick release. Mack Mood had won the quickest release in NBA history before Steph came into the league and now Steph has the same type of release. Mack Mood has, when he was stopping and popping and coming off the dime and shooting the ball and you didn't know what he was going to do. You know, because he was trying to guard him. No, go ahead. And you trying to guard him, he stopped and just shoot it. Or you, you know, you try to guard him, I got to beat him to this spot before he gets to the rim. He'll just stop and shoot it. So that's the quick release we're talking about. He, I think that Phil Jackson was talking about. Do you ever envy today's guards? I mean, the way they shoot threes, I mean, the freedom they have. Do you ever envy a wish man? If I played in this era, I'd be putting up 10 threes a game, you know, to me and stuff like that. Right, right. You know, you know what? I could have put up 10 threes a game if I wanted to, but I had other teammates to get the ball to. I get, you know, I want, I need to get my other teammates involved. You know, I had to get the Sean Lennon involved. I had to get Dan Marley involved. I had to get, you know, Mitch and Chris and Rod Higgins involved. I had to get PJ Brown involved. That's the way the game was. Then I had to get those people involved and make sure that they was happy. So they go down on the other end and do what we asked them to do on defense. You know, they was guarding the hardest people. They were sticking the hardest people. So I need them to be happy. So I had to get them a ball, you know? But I don't, you know, I don't envy them. I love it. Okay, you're true. I love watching, I love watching it happen because it's really just street basketball and it's Emanuel Emanuel and pick up basketball, I shouldn't say street basketball. I say pick up basketball, it's Emanuel Emanuel. And let's see if you can stop me or I can make you, you know, shoot a bad shot or a shot that you don't want to shoot, you know? And that's the way it is. But it's very interesting. It's very interesting and I like it. Sometimes the guys hold onto the ball too much. I wish they had passed it and then get it back. Well, in that, you know, yeah. Yeah, I want, you know, I love it. Great, great. Tim, man, I appreciate your time. Great stuff, man. And thanks a lot for joining in the zone. Hey, no, thank you for having me anytime, Chris. You know, you got my number, just let me know when you want me. All right, brother, cool. Thanks, man. All right, thank you.