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This week on the show, we were thrilled to be joined by the comedian and actor Gavin Matts. You may know him from his special, Progression, or his work on the TV series Hacks or Ramy, though we know him primarily as a ball-knower and British Columbian of distinction. We had a long, fun conversation about Gavin's love for the New York Knicks, the relocation of the Vancouver Grizzlies that forced him into Roninhood, how he got kicked out of the NYC comedian run (which previous NBR guest Devon Walker talked about in January), his scouting report on Ramy Youssef's game, and how he tried to get into the White Men Can't Jump remake. It was a fun one! You can find Nothing But Respect in Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. Follow the show on Instagram, and contact the Broke Jumper Tip Line at (347) 380-6426. Thanks for listening!

There comes a time in every skeleton's death when, upon their being discovered in a grave hugging another skeleton, modern people start foaming at the mouth guessing at what that relationship might have been. This is understandable and quite defensible from my perspective as a modern person. An embrace is a gesture that transcends however many centuries might separate us. Of course we might wonder who these two people were to each other. We might want to know the nature of their love. This is of course an assumption. An embrace is not proof of love, but it is a powerful suggestion of it. In archaeology, people buried in double and multiple burials are often interpreted as having some kind of connection, whether through social or family ties. An adult buried with a child might be interpreted to be the grave of a mother and a son, for example, and a double burial of two adults, male and female, is often interpreted to be a couple. But sometimes assumptions are overturned by evidence. In 2024, a paper that extracted ancient DNA from the skeletal material in Pompeii's plaster casts challenged several traditional interpretations. For example, the casts of an adult with a golden bracelet and a child sitting on their lap, traditionally assumed to be a mother and child, were revealed to belong to an adult male who was not related to the child. And the smaller of two people who died in an embrace, traditionally interpreted as sisters or lovers, was revealed to be a man who was unrelated to the other skeleton. This suggests this man might have died embracing another man or a tall woman, both of which are certainly more exciting options than sisters.

A terrible thing keeps happening to me. About three hours before the start of each game of the Western Conference Finals, I start to enter the "pumped and jacked zone." That's when I get pumped and jacked for the game, and plan my evening around my excitement to watch it. And then, without fail, at the moment that my anticipation has reached its peak, I am cruelly yanked from the pumped and jacked zone and thrown headlong into the "what the fuck is this?" zone by NBC's stupid camera angle. Several times during this series, NBC has broadcast early portions of the game from a camera angle that sucks. Someone involved in the broadcast seems to think this is a cool and novel experience for viewers at home, but I can assure this person that they are wrong. I do not feel like I am being offered a visual treat during these moments. Not only does this angle make it feel like I am watching the game from the perspective of a perplexed ghost unable to fully ascend to my eternal reward, it makes it harder to follow the action. As soon as the ball gets swung to the opposite side of the court, the badly angled camera loses it behind all the bodies standing in the way. It would be one thing if it only made me feel kind of nauseous at the start of each game, but I routinely can't tell what the hell is going on.

I know that every Presidents' Trophy winner has lost in the playoffs before the Cup Final in each of the last 13 seasons, and that the Colorado Avalanche advancing even this far made them more successful than your average No. 1 seed. I get that Cale Makar was too injured to play for the first two games, and that Nathan MacKinnon didn't finish the series anywhere near 100 percent. I'll even concede that there was a certain amount of hot goalie woo-woo with Carter Hart in net for Vegas. Doesn't matter. This sweep was total humiliation for the Avalanche. It was a vulgar disgrace to the city of Denver and state of Colorado and much of the Mountain Time Zone. It was antagonistic to the idea of a fun Stanley Cup Final. It was an insult to those who ever praised the Avalanche, perhaps in blog form. The last four games lost by this 121-point Colorado team were so shamefully ugly that they actually reached back in time and made the rest of the division look like crud by comparison. You're telling me the Wild could only take one game off of these chumps? Contract the Dallas Stars. Facing a team that changed their coach with eight games remaining in the regular season, the Avs couldn't find a way to take even just one measly game, not even a game they led by three goals. They couldn't score. They couldn't keep Vegas off the board. They lost because they stunk. With their season on the line, Vegas made the Avs look like a bunch of high schoolers at open skate. A deep, creatively inspired roster that ranked first in both goals scored and goals allowed ranked first in shittiness when it mattered. With maybe one or two exceptions they served up only the limpest of challenges for Hart in goal. The Avs were caged by Vegas, who seemed to play with more excitement and enthusiasm than the guys whose season and legacy were on the line. Colorado gets to return nearly the whole of this lineup for one more year if they so choose, but after such a shocking crashout, they might not want to.

The Vegas Golden Knights are a grudgingly acquired taste with one of the gristliest coaches in modern North American sport, but when they serve the meal as they did Tuesday night, you're eating it because the alternative is leaving hungry. Sweeping the battered Colorado Avalanche with a clinical 2-1 win puts them back into the Stanley Cup Final, and doing it the chesty and bullying way they did, is very much a Vegas copyright. The NHL has a performatively polite veneer when someone in their midst succeeds, but it does so through gritted teeth when it comes to Las Vegas, and you will hear that reluctance for the next week while Montreal and Carolina sort out the right side of the bracket. To call in John Tortorella to add tacks to that sandpaper makes little sense until you see it in action and discover that it was the only thing to be done.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiYsxEjAe7k Last night's closeout game didn't look particularly unique, except that the Knights took the early lead after spotting the Avs the first period of the previous two. But once the games got legs, they played out the same way: with the Knights controlling play, space and time. They were healthier than Colorado, but injuries are not granted a high level of mitigation in hockey. It's a far more cynical and binary matter: If you're playing, you're healthy enough.

Every spring, as the flowers open and the days warm, Knicks merchandise bursts out of closets in New York City. Hats, T-shirts, and jackets adorn eager New Yorkers across the five boroughs. I wish I were a mature enough person to handle this particular bandwagoning with grace, and I do arrive there eventually. But there's always an initial tingle of irritation at the stolen valor. Hey, well-adjusted young urban professional who brought their kid to the playground: You didn't suffer for that shirt. You weren't with me watching every Emmanuel Mudiay turnover of the 2018-19 NBA season. The mere name "Isiah" doesn't trigger a twitch in your eyelid. Your mind is unburdened by the knowledge of what lined Kevin Knox's draft-day suit. You haven't encountered the general concept of Mike Sweetney. I know that after each Knicks team flames out in the postseason, you will take that hat off just as breezily as you put it on. You don't know the pain of watching this franchise discover vivid, exotic ways to fail: the squandered leads, the sputtering fourth quarters, the apocalyptic injuries, the Haliburton bounce. Your hat is just a wardrobe decision; the brain beneath it bears no scars. That's what's so surreal about the spring of 2026: This time, there are no new scars at all. By completing a sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers Monday night, the Knicks have already clinched a spot in the NBA Finals, at least two games before their future opponent. What, in regards to basketball, will we even have to complain about to our grandchildren someday?

The Oklahoma City Thunder have options. Their best player got off to a rough start in Game 5. Before scoring a single point Tuesday night, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander committed three live-ball turnovers and a shooting foul, leading to seven points for the visiting San Antonio Spurs, and he missed four shots of his own, including a pair of layups. "If it was four or five mes out there, we would've been down 20 after the first quarter," Gilgeous-Alexander said after the game. The Thunder were not down 20 after the first quarter; they were, in fact, up two points, and would spend the rest of the night lengthening their lead and fortifying their advantages, cruising to 127–114 victory. While Gilgeous-Alexander struggled for space and rhythm, Chet Holmgren took and made some tough mid-rangers over smaller defenders. Alex Caruso and Kenrich Williams buried three-pointers off the bench. Isaiah Hartenstein threw in one of those goofy push shots. Gilgeous-Alexander had plenty of time to work his way into a groove. "The guys were great to start the game. I probably should never start like that again, and give us a better chance to win a ballgame, but the guys held it down." It's not just on offense that Mark Daigneault has the resources for Plans B and C. When his first idea of a defensive plan for stopping Victor Wembanyama bombed back in Game 1, Daigneault unleashed Hartenstein to drag Wemby into the hell of endless arm-bars, and set Caruso and Lu Dort free to beat up San Antonio's perimeter playmakers. The Spurs have not yet exactly identified a counter-maneuver: After scoring a relatively cool 122 points in the series-opening victory, San Antonio's offense has become a painful grind, and even in their Game 4 win they were held to just 103 points, an offensive rating (102) more than six points worse than the figure produced by the regular season's shittiest offense. Yes, sure, San Antonio scored 114 in the loss Tuesday night, but they produced a sub-Wizards 1.06 points per possession during Wembanyama's 38 minutes of action.

Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs was arrested on Tuesday in relation to an alleged domestic violence incident that occurred on May 23. He has been charged with battery, criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct, strangulation and suffocation, and intimidation of a victim. The news of Jacobs's arrest was announced by the Hobart-Lawrence Police Department in Hobart, Wis. The department put out a press release on Tuesday announcing that officers had been dispatched to a disturbance involving Jacobs at 8:37 a.m. on May 23. The subsequent investigation led to Jacobs's arrest on Tuesday. The department's press release also stated that it will be releasing no further information. Attorneys representing Jacobs have released a statement denying the allegations against their client. From ESPN:

NEW YORK — On Monday night, the Knicks punched their ticket to the NBA Finals. Local fans of the Finals-bound team had gathered to watch the game together at Radio City Music Hall after the team decided to change the venue for the official watch party, because authorities thought things got too rowdy outside of Madison Square Garden in the aftermath of Game 3's blowout win in Cleveland. Regardless of where, though, New York was ready for the moment. And because the result of Game 4 was never in doubt from the second quarter on, Monday's watch party was mostly one long celebration. The beauty of New York City is its melting pot, and the vibes at Radio City were a perfect example of it. Knicks fans of every race, gender, ethnicity, and religion got together to collectively lose their minds about their team's return to the Finals for the first time since 1999, looking for their first championship since 1973. There were old men accompanied by their adult children and young grandkids. Fans in hijabs. Fans in yarmulkes. Bros in OG Anunoby and Jalen Brunson jerseys looking like feral dogs ready to roam the streets. Brunson and Anunoby jerseys were the most popular, in fact. I saw one Josh Hart jersey, some Jeremy Lin jerseys, a Latrell Sprewell and a Patrick Ewing jersey that were both absolute grails. Also, a Jordan Clarkson jersey. A city of true diversity! The array of jerseys spoke to the Knicks fans' long journey back to the top. The rough '80s that led to winning the Ewing lottery. The rough-and-tumble '90s, where the Knicks were good but never quite good enough. The miracle '99 run with Sprewell and Allan Houston. The Stephon Marbury Knicks, which probably made Larry Brown miss Allen Iverson. The Carmelo Knicks, which featured several players who possessed a bottomless bag but never managed to put a trophy in it. Linsanity, which burned impossibly bright for impossibly short. All the way to today, the best and most fun Knicks team in ages. In between those various eras was a lot of executive mismanagement, beefs, suffering, the worst contracts you’ve ever seen, an arena that has showcased the powers of the surveillance state, and an owner who takes joy in being awful, because no one likes his blues band or whatever.

Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking belts, the Thunder, remembering some book characters, and more. Your letters: Dave: