Sue Bird, Cheryl Miller, Reggie Miller, Jamal Crawford, and Sam Flood
Oct. 14, 2026
THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We have a plethora of basketball riches here at NBC Sports right now with the WNBA Finals happening this Saturday and NBA Tipoff on Tuesday. So, we decided to combine both into this call.
Joining us today to speak on the WNBA Finals are Hall-of-Famers and analysts Sue Bird and Cheryl Miller, and for NBA Tipoff are Cheryl’s little brother and Hall-of-Famer Reggie Miller and three-time Sixth Man of the Year Jamal Crawford. They’ll be our game analysts calling 76ers-Knicks on Tuesday night. We’ll also be joined by NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood.
As you likely know, Game 1 of the WNBA Finals begins this Saturday with coverage at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. On Tuesday, October 20th, NBC Sports will present an NBA tripleheader, featuring Celtics-Pistons at 3:00 p.m. ET, 76ers-Knicks at 6:30 p.m. ET, which includes the banner raising and ring ceremony, and Thunder-Spurs at 9:30 p.m. ET.
We’ll begin with opening remarks and start with NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood.
SAM FLOOD: Thank you all for joining us. On Monday we had to get our entire NBA team together to get ready for this upcoming season. It was our seminar where every announcer, every production person, every tech person all got in a room together and talked about the season ahead. We looked back on where we were and where we plan to go in this season. It was fun to see the gang back together again, and excited for Tuesday to launch the season.
We’re even more excited for Saturday and the start of the WNBA Finals. What a great matchup this is going to be. Glad the league was able to work out Game 4, so it could be in State Farm Arena, and we’re excited to cover that game, as well as Game 1 on Saturday.
No better group than our big three in the studio with Maria (Taylor), Sue and Cheryl, who do an amazing job of setting up the games and breaking them down at halftime, pregame and postgame. I will pass the ball to Sue and let’s get going.
SUE BIRD: Hi everybody. Echoing what Sam just said, I’m excited about this Finals. It’s a great matchup, two teams that have a lot of similarities but also a lot of differences, and in that scenario you never know what can happen, especially in a seven-game series. This is the second time the league has had the Finals be seven games. So, it’ll be super fun to see it play out.
It’s two franchises that also have a very interesting history in terms of both being expansion and both having success pretty early. I’m really looking forward to it. Really proud that myself, Cheryl and Maria will get to cover Game 1 on NBC. As a former player and as a current analyst, it’s a really exciting moment.
CHERYL MILLER: As always, great assist, partner, and I couldn’t state it any better than Sue.
Great matchups, looking forward to seeing the manifestation of Angel Reese‘s dreams and everything being in the Finals. I’m so grateful that the Dream were able to move it to State Farm Arena. It’s my first time being there, first time being at the Chase Center, “Ballhalla”. So, I’m excited to see the fans, hear the fans and the energy.
This is exciting for me because these two teams are, in my opinion, mirror images of each other defensively. So, I can’t wait to see which team blinks. The fact that it’s seven-game series is going to be interesting to see. And also, I will make one strong prediction: No sweeps. There will be no sweeps in this series.
REGGIE MILLER: Let me first start off by saying how lucky are we to have Sue Bird and obviously my big sis, the greatest of all time, break down all these games. It’s been a while since Cheryl and I have had a chance to be on the same network. I’m honored to be on this call with her.
But Jamal, we’ve got to step up our game, brother. I don’t know if you’ve seen all the dances between Sue and Maria and Cheryl, but we’ve got to step up our game. Come on, man. Look, we’ve got opening night, Jamal. I’ll save all my NBA stuff for whoever wants to know later on.
JAMAL CRAWFORD: Reg, I saw you doing the Michael Jackson dance back when you were with the Pacers in the layup line. With your creativity and my creativity, we could make something good happen. We’ve got to bring Mike (Tirico) in as well.
REGGIE MILLER: The way that Sue and Cheryl have changed what pre and postgames are all about, and not only are they great analysts and they were great hoopers, that’s easy to be said, but when you see those dance moves from those two, my goodness.
SUE BIRD: I love the idea that Cheryl is over there just squirming.
CHERYL MILLER: I’m going to set the record straight. Maria and Sue, they’re the culprits for dance moves. I’ll tell you right now.
SUE BIRD: You look like you hate it.
Q. This question is for Sue and Cheryl. I’ve curious of your thoughts on what this Atlanta Dream team has looked like. Obviously the narrative has been that Golden State swept them throughout the regular season. But I’m curious from your vantage point what has changed about this Dream team that could make this matchup interesting now in the Finals?
SUE BIRD: Well, I think what we learned from the series with Golden State and the (Las Vegas) Aces is what happened in the regular season, especially when the game was as far back and in this scenario, July, you can’t really use it as a gauge. So much has changed for both teams. Maybe not from a personnel standpoint, although Atlanta added DeWanna Bonner, so we’ll get to that in a second, but teams evolve over seasons and over the course of a season.
You can start to see trends here and there but generally speaking when you look at these two teams now, and I think that’s what makes this even more interesting and compelling, they haven’t met since July. They are different. I think for Atlanta specifically, to your question, adding DeWanna Bonner is so important. They needed a player that would be a calming force. They needed a player that would give them confidence in those tough moments.
I think schematically from that standpoint, she’s been such an important piece. Obviously they’re going to have to figure things out if Allisha Gray can no longer play, but I would like to throw in Jordin Canada‘s play. We could talk about Rhyne Howard or Angel Reese, World Cup players, players that have had great seasons. Jordin Canada has turned it up in the last two weeks and that really makes Atlanta different. A point guard that really has speed but is now hitting the three the way she is. That’ll open things that no team that saw Atlanta even a month ago could have prepared for.
So, it’s going to be a chess match the whole series.
CHERYL MILLER: Just to follow up on what Sue just said, I’m looking forward to the ultimate chess game between these two coaches, Coach (Karl) Smesko and also Coach (Natalie) Nakase. I think it’s going to be great, and each game is going to be different.
I love what DB, DeWanna Bonner, has brought to the Dream. It’s been a lot of stability, a lot of knowledge, and even to the extent that on our telecast, Rhyne Howard admitted they would not be in this position today if it wasn’t for DeWanna Bonner.
So, it’s going to be very interesting to see, in my opinion, which team can mirror who they are and can be who their DNA says they are. Both of them talk about their strength at the defensive end. So, it’s going to be interesting to see.
The reason I give maybe a slight, slight razor’s edge to Atlanta is only because of the scoring power that they have, and now with possibly seeing, like Sue said, Allisha Gray, where she may be at, that may have dissipated, so it’s just a wait-and-see.
Q. My question is for Reggie and Jamal. As you know, the Knicks are NBA champions but the only team that’s beaten them recently are the Indiana Pacers, twice actually. I’m curious what you make of maybe some of the competition the Knicks have with a revamped Pacers team with (Tyrese) Haliburton back, with LeBron (James) on the Sixers now, just the competition they have out there in the Eastern Conference.
REGGIE MILLER: Absolutely the East has gotten better. But that’s generally what happens with whomever wins the championship. You look out West a year ago after OKC had won, the West has been loaded really for the last, I would say, five-plus years. But now that you fast forward with the Knicks getting ready to raise the banner, Toronto will be better, you’ve got Kawhi (Leonard) coming from the Clippers. Giannis (Antetokounmpo), who obviously is trading jerseys going down to South Beach in Miami. Obviously Jaylen Brown and LeBron joining the Sixers.
Everyone in the East has gotten better, but if I’m still the Knicks, we have our starting five intact. The only big piece to be missing will be Mitchell Robinson, who in my opinion will be a big loss because he gave them a lot of second and third-shot opportunities because it’s such a great offensive-rebounding team.
But we still have our core intact. This Knicks team has been through a lot of battles and wars together, and you just mentioned the last two seasons prior to this, two seasons they probably should have beat the (Indiana) Pacers but they came up short. So, they’re battle tested.
They will take that into the season, but there’s no question that the East has gotten much better and is ready to challenge them.
JAMAL CRAWFORD: To Reg’s point, it’s been amazing to watch not only the Knicks’ run but everybody around them get better. Every team believes they have what it takes or at least has a legit shot to go win a championship, and you can just see it by how they’re starting the preseason.
I had the opportunity to watch the Raptors play this past weekend, and it wasn’t preseason level. They were playing at a really high level, defensively especially, and you could see they were trying to set the tone early.
Then you watch the Knicks, they have what everybody wants. It’s been 53 years. It’s been so much time in between. New York was yearning for that. They don’t have the group, to me, that’s okay with getting one. It’s like, okay, now we have the formula, we have the recipe, we know Coach (Mike) Brown‘s system works, we know who our guy is, and we know we can play late in games. We have the recipe to go do this again.
I think that’s why Jalen Brunson is so important because he’s going to keep everybody else on edge and make sure they’re doing everything they are supposed to do to say no, it’s not just one. This is our time. Let’s try to run it back again.
Very intriguing and can’t wait to open up next Tuesday in New York.
Q. Sue and Cheryl, can you guys talk a little bit about Angel’s (Reese) journey and how she’s grown this year for Atlanta? There were so many questions about her coming into the league but how she’s answered them in the last couple years and especially this year in Atlanta?
CHERYL MILLER: Well, I don’t know all the questions -- most of the questions about Angel Reese were coming into the league, which always baffles me because any rookie coming in is definitely going to have holes in their game.
But one thing that set Angel apart as a rookie was her drive, her tenacity, her desire. I think she’s one of those players where the more you tell her who she’s not and try to set limits, she’s going to break those ceilings every time.
I think Karl Smesko was a godsend for her career, giving her the confidence and showing her how to expand her offensive game to the three-point arc. Defensively she’s always been a handful and a nightmare.
I just love the fact that at times she’s been verbal, but for the most part she’s letting her game do most of the talking.
SUE BIRD: Yeah, I mean, truly not much more to add. I think Cheryl really hit it. This is a player when you watched her in college, she had something that you can’t teach; that motor, that drive. We all knew it. We all saw it, whether it was on the defensive end or rebounding.
I think people underestimated what it means to have a skill that you can’t teach, that not everybody has. So that was always going to be the backbone of where her career was going to go.
I cannot agree with Cheryl more. I think Karl Smesko is a coach that even from the little bit I’ve been around him, even when he was at Florida Gulf Coast, he knows who he is, he knows how he coaches and he knows what he can bring out of players, and that’s exactly what Angel needed. On the offensive end, not just her three-point shooting, that’s the thing that sticks out because it’s new. But I think having that type of relationship with Angel or having a coach with that type of relationship, it allows her to go out there and be a better version of what already existed.
I think the roster around her in Atlanta is just a great pairing. That’s what professional sports are. There are a lot of great players in this league. Sometimes you just need to be teamed up with the right people and have the right mix, and Angel has found that in Atlanta, and it’s allowed her to thrive.
Q. For Reggie and Jamal, you touched on the Knicks before. Do you guys think the stuff with KAT (Karl-Anthony Towns) and Josh Hart, their contract extensions being tabled, could that be a distraction for them or the team at all? And they’re 0-4 in the preseason; do we make any of that? Should Knicks and their fans be concerned about that?
REGGIE MILLER: Well, they call it preseason for a reason, and I think last night I believe the whole starting five didn’t play for the Knicks, and I know people would love to read into that.
Look, Mike Brown has come out and addressed the elephant in the room about the contracts. I think the Knicks’ organization as a whole said, look, we’re going to table discussions, and all that really is, is to stop the media from asking the players, KAT (Karl Anthony Towns) and Josh (Hart), about their contract status in every scrum, which is smart. It doesn’t mean they’re not going to negotiate behind closed doors. They just don’t want the players to be asked every time there’s a camera in their face, hey, have you heard anything?
I hope it’s not a distraction because Jamal kind of alluded to this earlier, when you have a window to win a championship or multiple championships, you’ve got to seize the moment, and the Knicks’s window is wide open right now. They’ve got the experience. They understand how to win. They’re a veteran-led team. They’ve been together. They’re well-coached. And they play nine, ten deep now because of Mike Brown. So, they have all the ingredients to win multiple championships.
I hope something like a player worrying about their contract status doesn’t detour them from the ultimate goal. I’m curious to see the first 15, 20 ball games. That will tell me a lot, if this thing is kind of lingering a little bit, by their record.
But I think this team will be focused and locked in because of the captain in Jalen Brunson, and he will get his team right because their window is wide open right now. They’ve got a boulder on their back being the champs, and I hope something like this doesn’t take them off the rails a little bit.
JAMAL CRAWFORD: Yeah, I totally agree with Reg. I think them getting in front of it, addressing it head on and saying, ‘We’re not going to talk about this right now. Obviously, we’re not on the same page exactly, but we’ll deal with it later’, I think it gives a certain peace to the player as well, so it’s not something they’re thinking about all year.
Like Reg said as well, I’m sure they’ll have some conversations during the course of the year, but it won’t be the main focus. The main focus is repeating, running it back and knowing that this time goes fast.
It’s amazing how it works sometimes. We talked about OKC when they were younger and they lost to the Miami Heat and it’s like, they’re young. You have (Kevin) Durant and (James) Harden and (Russell) Westbrook; they’ll be back multiple times. With that group, they never went back again.
Jalen Brunson, KAT, Josh Hart, OG (Anunoby), these guys understand this doesn’t just happen and we have to fully take advantage of it, and we can’t do it unless we’re all in. I think they’ll keep that to the side and say, “You know what, we’ll play for this, we’ll play for this championship, and things will work out the way they’re supposed to.’ If they keep that focus, things will work out. I think they’ll be in great shape. That’s how I see it playing out.
The other part, I’m not worried about the preseason. I remember when I was there in my first year with the Knicks you had Fat Joe at that game, all these guys. I was playing preseason so hard trying to leave New York an impression my first time there. They’re like, nobody really cares. It’s okay. Wait until the season starts. So, I think they’ll be fine. No issue there.
Q. Question for Sam: I just wanted to get your thoughts on the historical significance of the WNBA Finals returning to NBC, and also wanted to ask you specifically about your producer Betsy Riley and director Jenny Glazer, how have their seasons gone, and how ready do you expect them to be for this Final -- obviously it’s been a fun year for you guys, so how has the job been that they’ve done?
SAM FLOOD: Well, we love being back in the WNBA business. It was launched on NBC, and it was great job in those early years, but it’s at a whole different level now. This is big time. The ratings are through the roof. They were really big back in our early days. But this current iteration of the league is so much fun to watch. These buildings are packed. The crowds are crazy engaged at every second of every game. These are two venues that will be all in. So, we’re looking forward to seeing that.
Really proud of the work that Betsy (Riley) and Jenny (Glazer) have done. They’re a great team. Betsy is so passionate about this project. She’s constantly coming up with ideas to add this, add that, how about trying this. It’s been fun to watch her work through the process.
And then Jenny as a director has done a wonderful job leading all our WNBA games as the coordinating director. She’s got that leadership chip that you want as someone overseeing a project of this magnitude, and now they get to show off on the biggest stage with this great talent team and this perfect matchup for the WNBA Finals.
We can’t ask for anything more and are thrilled that season one is almost in the books, but no better way than to cap it off with the WNBA Finals.
Q. Just want to ask about Natalie Nakase. It’s clear just from the results that she’s a great coach, but just from working with her, what kind of signs do you see from her where it’s like, okay, this lady knows what she’s doing?
SUE BIRD: Yeah, I mean, if you spend two minutes with Natalie, you know that she’s going to -- well, first of all, you know she’s obsessed. Sadly, we all got to see that in terms of the situation that happened in the Dallas series, and she was even on record talking about, oh, I have to remind myself to eat. I have to remind myself to take care of myself.
She loves basketball. She’s obsessed with doing a good job. Like I said, spending one or two minutes with her, that comes through very clearly. She’s so passionate about being a coach. She’s so passionate about wanting this team to be successful from the moment she got the job, nothing was going to be enough until they won a championship. That’s how she approaches every day. That’s how even with USA Basketball, albeit a different role, that presence was there.
She’s just a coach that really understands who she is and does a tremendous job of communicating that to her players. The buy-in that she’s gotten from the Golden State Valkyries, from that roster, and from that franchise, I think that really speaks to her ability to communicate, her ability to say this is who I am, this is what I think we’re capable of, and for everybody to buy into that.
I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her and working with her. I’m really excited for her that she’s in the Finals.
Q. Just a question for Reggie and Jamal. With Opening Night including the Western Conference Finals rematch, the Thunder and Spurs, how do you see these two teams bouncing back this year, and what are your expectations for them?
JAMAL CRAWFORD: Well, for me, I think you have a team that won a championship just a couple seasons ago with OKC, and you have a team who feels like they can win championships now and in the future, and they know that they’re going to have to go through each other to get there to represent the Western Conference. Reg and I were calling games, and we were literally like kids in a candy store to see the high-level chess play going on between Coach Mark (Daigneault) and Coach Mitch (Johnson), watching how Wemby (Victor Wembanyama) adjusted to getting to his spots because they were knocking him off. Watching how SGA (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) was trying to navigate three different defenders and who was open and when to take over.
It was high-level chess basketball that was going on, and I honestly believe with NBC’s storytelling bringing that story to life, a new generation of fans opened up, and I feel like a new generation of fans really got back into the game and just seeing all the intricacies and seeing all the little details as they happen throughout the course of the game with the high-level chess match going on. Reg and I were calling the game but we were truly lost in the game as well.
Knowing those two teams are going to represent for the next however many years if they stay healthy and continue this path, but then there’s also teams like Golden State saying, you know what, we’ve got to try to put it out there for (Stephen) Curry, we have to see how far we can go.
You have younger teams coming up on the rise, the Lakers, the new-look Lakers, what that will be.
There are so many different storylines that I feel like those two will be representing the Western Conference at least at the top of the heap for a long time to come with great storylines and great players. You have the Chet Holmgren matchup that was going on back to when they were in high school playing in the U-17 Olympic trials. So just so many storylines and so many different things.
But what I’ll say about Chet as well, is that I think he had to really look in the mirror and say, you know what, I have to figure this alien out and I have to meet it head on to know I can give my team the best chance. I’m excited to see it and the fact we’re airing their opening night gives me goosebumps.
REGGIE MILLER: Yeah, Jamal is all over this. It’s OKC and San Antonio and then everyone else in the West. Not to say that you can’t have a dark horse come up, but it’s clearly those two teams.
Having said all that, both, in my opinion, have a lot to prove. I think Jamal just touched upon it, the last time we saw OKC when they were the defending champs, Chet didn’t even attempt a shot in the second half, and everyone was scratching their heads like, where is the Holmgren that we know, that we saw in the previous Finals.
They lost some pieces. Look, Lu Dort is gone; he’s in Atlanta. They lost some shooting in Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Joe, but Sam Presti, as we know, is no question the best executive in the game, has retooled. They go out and get another big in (Aday) Mara from Michigan, coming off that championship team for the Michigan Wolverines, to try to add more size to go along with (Isaiah) Hartenstein and Chet, to go against with, as Jamal just alluded to that alien in San Antonio.
The last time we saw the Spurs, they were leading by -- they’re still leading by double digits against the Knicks and lost four of five games.
Look, I really want to see if San Antonio can bounce back because that is a gut blow. When you are up double digits in the Finals four of five games and one of those games you’re up 29 with a chance to even the series and the Knicks come back and win that ballgame, there’s only one of two ways you can go. You can go the previous way like what San Antonio did when they lost that Finals against Miami and came back the next year and won, or we may never hear from them again. And I don’t think that’s going to be the case with this team.
But they’ve retooled a little bit by adding a little bit more veteran leadership with Tobias Harris. Coach Mitch is going to have to figure out this whole Dylan Harper situation at point guard if he’s starting or coming off the bench. I’m sure that will play itself out.
But it’s the Spurs. It’s the Thunder. Look, we all want to see it again. Are there some dark horses in the West? Sure, absolutely. Minnesota. Look, I want to see the whole experiment with LaMelo Ball and Ant (Anthony) Edwards. Jamal mentioned the Lakers being retooled. Now it’s really Luka (Dončić’s) team and you have Walker Kessler, a big man who can defend the paint and catch lobs, and let’s see if Austin Reaves can stay healthy.
To me, the Houston Rockets, people aren’t talking about them enough. Fred VanVleet is back, healthy. To me that’s what they’ve been missing. They were missing that point guard leadership. They tried to make Amen Thompson a point forward and he had success, but also growing pains at the same time.
I think a smart pickup was Marcus Smart, who’s only going to help Amen Thompson defensively. The Houston Rockets still have Kevin Durant at the end of the day. I think the Houston Rockets could be one of those teams that upset the apple cart a little bit out West.
Again, barring health at all, to me it’s OKC, it’s the Spurs and everyone else, but there could be some teams, lightning in a bottle just like the Knicks. To me it was a perfect storm for the Knicks. They got hot at the absolute right time. Who can be the Knicks this year, getting hot at the absolute right time?
Q. This question is for Sue Bird. Sue, away from the court you’ve invested a lot of capital as well as your own experience in seeing opportunities in the women’s basketball space that go beyond playing. I just wanted to get a sense from you because we’re really starting to see a lot of WNBA players expand their brand with their own media, their own marketing, just getting involved away from the game itself. I wonder from your perspective what your opinion is on this, and where you might see some additional growth when it comes to what the current stars of the game are doing beyond basketball.
SUE BIRD: Yeah, I think the two things that come to mind are -- well, three things. One, I think those of us that have been in the women’s basketball space, whether it’s someone like myself who’s been in it for a long time or maybe a player who’s in their second, third, fourth year of their career, we know the value. We’ve always understood it. We’ve always seen it, and we’ve just been waiting for people to catch up to that. So that exists.
We don’t like being compared to the NBA, but we definitely can learn, and we’ve seen those players kind of take control of their own brands, and potentially for some, take control of their own narrative. In some ways we’ve been able to learn from the success and maybe some of the failures and kind of use that as a little bit of a blueprint.
I think the other part of it is because, circling back on the first point, we knew the value and we knew other people didn’t see it, we actually had to get very creative in how we created opportunities for ourselves. So, I think a lot of young players are just really good at being on social media and really good at connecting with fans in a really authentic way.
Sadly, it’s because they had to. But the nice byproduct of that, they’re excellent at it.
I also think we live in a time where these young players and this younger -- let’s call it new generation, they’re just able to showcase their personalities in ways that I think has taken our game to another level. The storytelling aspect is what connects these fans to the players, and the players know that.
So, they lean into it. I think a long, long, long time ago we were discouraged. We were kind of trying to be something that maybe we weren’t to get fans, and now, oh, what do you know, if you’re just yourself and you lean into that personality, it actually allows these players to build an even larger business for the league and for themselves.
I think a lot of players now have a different ambition in a really wonderful way and they see opportunities, and they’re seizing them.
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