ESPN’s Vincent Goodwill Talks NBA Playoffs, Magic Firing & More with Rich

Vincent Goodwill of ESPN joined The Rich Eisen Show to take stock of an NBA first round that ran long, surprised everyone, and quietly shifted the league's center of gravity away from the three-point shot.

"Maybe the pendulum is swinging back as opposed to three-point shooting," Goodwill said. "All the great three-point shooting teams are gone." From an entertainment standpoint, he conceded, that may be a problem. From a basketball standpoint, it might be an answer. He also pointed to the new fragility of 3-1 leads, which used to be insurmountable and have now become survivable for the team that has more fight left in the tank.

The Sixers crawling back against the Boston Celtics was the surprise. The Magic losing was not. And the Knicks-Sixers second-round matchup, which Goodwill is chronicling for ESPN, has all the residue of a real rivalry. He brought up Joel Embiid versus Karl-Anthony Towns, Embiid versus Mitchell Robinson, the old playoff scar from Robinson getting dragged down by Embiid and missing the rest of that series. Paul George is now in the equation. Tyrese Maxey has a track record of big numbers against New York.

The question Goodwill kept circling was whether Philadelphia has any sweat equity left. "You're playing seven games in 14 days, and you're still wearing the cologne of the Boston Celtics right now," he said. The Knicks have been better since Game 4 of the Atlanta series. The first two games of the second round, Goodwill predicted, will tell you nothing. Games three and four will tell you everything.

Rich raised Jaylen Brown's flopping comments and Goodwill went straight at it. He said it is an everyday conversation between officials, the league office and players. He laid the blame on a generation of fans, his own elders included, who decided basketball was too physical and demanded the league clean it up. The pendulum, he argued, swung past clean and into theater. Players figured out that pretending to get hit gets them to the line. "Basketball in the regular season looks like an exhibition compared to the playoffs," he said.

Goodwill also noted that nobody wants to hear flopping complaints from a Celtics team that just blew a 3-1 lead and shoots more threes than twos. He stopped short of clearing Embiid, who he said hits the floor a lot for what often looks like minimal contact.

On the West, Goodwill split the Lakers and Timberwolves into two separate problems. He does not see Luka Dončić close to returning. Brian Windhorst told him the ramp-up phase has not even begun. Goodwill warned that hamstrings can quietly steal a player's burst forever, and the Lakers have a 10-year investment to protect. Anthony Edwards is a different story. The Wolves have made the conference finals two years running and are comfortable in underdog clothes against San Antonio.

The Jamal Mosley firing in Orlando, Goodwill said, was decided long before the elimination game. He expects Mosley to be in high demand, and ranked the Magic as a more attractive opening than Milwaukee, where Giannis Antetokounmpo's future and health remain unsettled. He closed by ribbing Rich about a Sixers ticket policy that supposedly bars non-Philadelphia residents, then reminded everyone of the secondary market.