Chris Webber on “Arrogant” Spurs’ “Unforgiveable” Game 4 Mistakes vs Knicks

Chris Webber calls the Spurs "arrogant" because in a Game 4 they were positioned to win, their players settled for early, contested threes, ignored a glaring size advantage, and kept doing it even as the Knicks mounted a comeback. That, to Webber, is the unforgivable part: a team full of decision-makers, none of whom hit the brakes when the game demanded it.

Webber broke it down for Rich with the floor handed to him as a "Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and Shrine friend." He sided with Charles Barkley's "dumb basketball" read but reached for a sharper word. "Probably the dumbest game and I like to say most arrogant game," Webber said, noting the Spurs did it even with their best player sidelined and the stakes that high.

The shot diet is what set him off. "You come down you shoot eight threes," Webber said. "I don't think analytics would tell you to shoot the ball eight times in a row if you made it seven times in a row." Bombing away early in the shot clock, in his read, is the opposite of feel. A Hall of Fame coach texted him during the game, frustrated, Webber said, that teams practice "so much against cones and not real game experience."

The arrogance, Webber explained, lives in the situation. He separated it from the good kind. A pitcher who gives up a home run has to forget the next pitch, "that's positive arrogance." But "when there's time, space, and game left," you are supposed to "play deliberate, thoughtful basketball." He pointed to Steph Curry as the counter-model, a shooter who goes back door for a layup the moment a defender overplays him, not a specialist.

What made it unforgivable was the personnel. "You have so many players that can make so many decisions for no one to say, 'Hey, let's get a good shot,'" Webber said. And the size went unused. "We have the tallest player on the floor on our team. Let's go inside." He compared it to "the Seattle team that wouldn't give it to Beast Mode," throwing bombs on fourth and inches.

The flip side was the Knicks' heart. Down big, with Wu-Tang at halftime, they stormed back. Webber loved that Method Man called the Knicks in five while New York trailed by 29. "Flu game, Wu game. I love it, dog."