The NBA Finals will commence on Thursday, June 6 with the Dallas Mavericks visiting TD Garden to face the Boston Celtics with the Larry O’Brien Trophy hanging in the balance. Dallas will aim to win its first championship since 2011 while Boston looks to accomplish the feat for the first time since 2008. Mike Breen will be on the call for the NBA Finals on ABC at 8:30 p.m. EST with analysts Doris Burke and JJ Redick, and reporter Lisa Salters. For Breen, it will mark the 19th time he is calling an NBA Finals series throughout his broadcast career. Moreover, he became the third basketball announcer to call at least 100 NBA Finals games last season.
Breen and his colleagues recently completed calling the Eastern Conference Finals between the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers on Monday. The Celtics’ Game 5 victory gave the team a nine-day break, which has turned out to prove advantageous for Breen because of a bug that he explained was “floating around the crew” during an appearance on Pardon My Take on Friday. Even though he wants every series to go seven games, he is ultimately taking advantage of the rest.
Co-hosts Dan “Big Cat” Katz and PFT Commenter asked Breen a variety of questions pertaining to his broadcast career and forthcoming NBA Finals assignment, including the origin of his iconic “Bang!” call for clutch three-point baskets. Breen articulated that he shouted “Bang!” from the stands while in college every time a Fordham player made a key basket. While he tried the call as a student broadcaster, he deemed it not to work and put it to the side until working one of his first jobs where he was calling high school basketball games on Friday nights in crowded high school gyms.
“They were small [gyms], but so loud, and it was hard to overcome the crowd, so I was searching for a concise call for a big moment, and a one-syllable word seemed to work, so I started using it there,” Breen said. “I kind of liked the way it worked – I’ve always tried to be ‘less is more’ as a broadcaster, so that’s when it started on the air.”
Katz explained that Breen has exclaimed “Bang!” two times in a row eight times in his broadcast career, something that he equates to big moments. During the NBA Playoffs, there were two such instances that rendered this type of call, the most recent of which being a key corner three-point basket from Jaylen Brown.
“It’s completely spontaneous,” Breen said. “I’m 63 now, and I love basketball as much as I did when I was 6 and first started playing, so when I watch something and somebody does something spectacular, especially if it’s a surprise; especially if it’s in a huge situation, I just kind of lose it. And I’ve never planned it – it just comes out, and the excitement is so good.”
The fact that there have only been eight derivatives of his standard three-point call is something Katz believes makes it extra special. Breen estimates that he does not articulate the “Bang!” call for over half of the games he calls, trying to be selective and equip it in moderation as needed. That being said, being able to predict just when consideration for such a call can be made is challenging and sometimes eliminates it from the broadcast entirely.
“There’s been some games where it seems like there’s going to [be] this phenomenal ending,” Breen said. “Somebody’s going to hit a three at the buzzer, and that’s when sometimes I’ll say, ‘Listen, let’s save it for maybe the big play at the end,’ and the big play never happens. The guy gets fouled and the winning points are from the free throw line, so I don’t normally go ‘Bang!’ on a free throw made. Sometimes, [there are] even games that I don’t even do any of them.”
