The Sunday afternoon matchup between the New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons on ESPN came down to the wire and ended on a play that an NBA official admitted after the fact should have been called a foul. The Knicks held on for a one-point victory over the Pistons, putting the team up three games to one coming back home to Madison Square Garden with a chance to close out the series on Tuesday night. Bill Simmons, a former ESPN employee, took the time on a live edition of his podcast to call out the network for the way it went about covering a seminal moment in the game.
With under three minutes to go in the third quarter, Brunson ceded possession of the ball to Dennis Schröder and remained down on the court, wincing in pain as he grabbed his right leg. Brunson tried putting weight on his foot during the timeout but fell over trying to do so and went to the locker room. The Knicks point guard ended up returning in the fourth quarter and scored 16 points as the team surmounted a 10-point deficit to take the victory.
“I have some ESPN notes,” Simmons said on his show. “Maybe don’t go to a commercial when Jalen Brunson is leaning against the scorer’s table holding his ankle in complete agony and do the, ‘We’ll be back after this,’ and then you’re gone for four minutes. That’s one.”
Simmons added that ESPN showed former Pistons guard Jalen Rose throughout the broadcast as he watched the team compete to even up the series. Rose formerly worked as an analyst for ESPN where he contributed to studio programming such as Jalen & Jacoby and NBA Countdown, but he was let go in June 2023 as the company moved on from several members of its on-air talent roster. Simmons departed ESPN in May 2015 when then-network president John Skipper opted not to renew his contract, and he has since been working for Spotify as head of talk strategy and hosting podcasts through The Ringer.
“I don’t think you need to show Jalen Rose 15 times after you f*****g laid him off two years ago three minutes before he was about to do a Get Up segment and gets a call and says, ‘Don’t go on Get Up because you’re about to be laid off,’” Simmons said. “Maybe don’t show him over and over again during the game you motherf*****s. Aggregate that – I don’t care.”
Ryen Russillo, who was co-hosting the show with Simmons, responded in the form of a question implicating that Rose wants to be on television. Since departing ESPN, he has taken part in studio work with TNT Sports and also recently provided color commentary during the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. Russillo preceded his statement by referring to it as a “zag,” and Simmons understood his perspective on the situation and how it could work in both ways.
“Maybe there’s truth of both sides,” Simmons said. “‘Hey, there’s Jalen Rose. We completely blindsided him two years ago after he did 15 years of great work for our company. He seems happy.’ Just classic, just can’t get over that place.”
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