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How has basketball media changed the most since you entered the business? Mike Breen: I think, first off, when we started broadcasting games, and I started broadcasting games, there was no internet. That’s the biggest change, because you went from, back in the day, when you go into a city to do a game, you would grab the local newspaper and scan it to see if you can get any kind of information. Now, before you go anywhere, before you leave your house, you can read articles and look at statistics on every player on every team for hours. So that’s the biggest change. The amount of information that’s available to you now is just incredible, to the point where you have to know when to stop researching for the game, because you can go on and on. Back in the day, so much of what you used on the air was [obtained] by talking directly to players, coaches, other broadcasters. That’s how you got the information. But now, it’s all out there for everyone to grab. So that’s the biggest change from when, from when I started.
Who would be on your Knicks Mount Rushmore? Mike Breen: It’s almost impossible to narrow it down, in terms of great players. Patrick Ewing and Clyde, I think, are up there. Bernard King was one of the great scorers in the history of the NBA, with the Knicks as well. I think just from the standpoint of leadership and great play, Willis Reed is up there. I do think Jalen Brunson, the way he’s been playing, is going to be in the conversation as one of the great Knicks of all-time. Mount Rushmore was only four, but there were just a lot of great players, but those are probably the ones that deserve to be at the top of the list.
ESPN president of content Burke Magnus appeared on the Sports Media with Richard Dietsch podcast this week and was asked about why demoting Burke and replacing her with Legler was the right decision. “I think it was the right decision because we were still searching for the perfect combination,” said Magnus. “Again, we’re talking about an A-plus-plus human being in Doris Burke here… There was no coincidence that we extended her at the same time we were putting her with a new partner. “And we honestly believe that now with a little experience in the top team in a three-person arrangement, that the best manifestation of Doris’ work is actually alone with a play-by-play person. We have in our new arrangement, as was the case with the last one, a schedule of plenty of high-profile NBA games to go around. And so she’ll be calling big games, meaningful games in her new circumstance relative to the top team, which will be Mike Breen, Richard Jefferson, and Tim Legler.
ABC/ESPN has demoted Hall of Fame broadcaster Doris Burke from its NBA Finals team and promoted network commentator Tim Legler to its No. 1 team, sources briefed on the decision told The Athletic on Thursday. Legler will pair with longtime lead play-by-player Mike Breen and Richard Jefferson for the network’s finals broadcasts. Jefferson recently agreed to a new contract with ESPN after working his first finals in June. Burke was on the finals team for two years, becoming the first woman in history to serve as an analyst for one of the traditional four major North American sports leagues championships (NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL).
Richard Jefferson has an agreement in place to return to ABC/ESPN, where he is expected to continue on NBA Finals broadcasts with Mike Breen, while Doris Burke’s spot on the network’s top team remains in question, sources briefed on the discussions said. Jefferson, 45, was elevated to the No. 1 team last season after previously being on the network’s No. 2 team. The official contract is not yet signed. ESPN declined to comment on Jefferson’s agreement.
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The 2016 NBA Finals were an iconic series with massive interest from the U.S. audience. Game 7 drew 31 million viewers, making it the most-watched game since 1998. No NBA game over the last nine years has come close to touching it. Breen said he has thought about that game often this week because of all that was at stake. “There was so much going on because the road team won, because there was an upset, because there was history coming back from a 3-1 deficit,” Breen said. “It was so important for both teams. For Golden State, it was to cap off what was the greatest regular season in NBA history. For Cleveland, it was to pull off this upset and come back from 3-1 down and hand the city this championship that they’ve been waiting (on for) decades and decades. It meant so much to the teams and to the fan bases and the city. Just like this series. In this series, for both fan bases, the emotions are just off the chart. You can tell that by the sound in each arena.”
Andrew Marchand: ESPN/ABC may have to produce Game 2 of the NBA Finals remotely because of a tornado warning in OKC. Mike Breen & company will still be commenting from court side but the production trucks outside the arena may not be available. ESPN would control the pictures and productions from either Bristol or LA.
ESPN executives will debate what is next, according to sources, with one discussion likely centering around if they feel Burke is better on a two-person team as opposed to the three-person team. ESPN’s other NBA game analysts this season were Tim Legler, Jay Bilas and Cory Alexander. This new team puts Breen in the middle of trying to find the magic that he had with Van Gundy and Jackson. Breen is one of the best NBA play-by-players ever and has called the most Finals on TV, but there has been a hole in his game for two seasons.
Burke is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, rightfully so. She was handed nothing, coming from obscurity, first working New York Liberty games on MSG Network before her rise through the ESPN ranks. She was sharp and informative. But in the three-person booth the last two years, she hasn’t seemed to mesh as well with Breen. He doesn’t outright ignore what she says, but they rarely build on each other’s comments. ESPN has failed to create a deep game analyst bench, even resorting to college basketball expert Bilas on playoff games this season. Some top decision-makers like Legler a lot, and he could become a Finals option, according to sources briefed on the network decision-makers’ thinking.
Mike Breen was calling Game 5 of the 1994 Finals for WFAN, which was the radio home of the Knicks from 1988-2004. “The O.J. game is still one of the memories I will never forget, because I called it on radio and it was one of the most bizarre nights I’ve ever had calling basketball,” Breen told Deitsch. “The game starts and we had a TV monitor in our booth as well. And now NBC goes to the split screen and everybody is talking about it. At halftime, people weren’t talking about the basketball game – a critical NBA Finals game – they were talking about O.J. And I’m calling the biggest game of my life.”
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Trying to keep his focus on Game 5 of the NBA Finals, Breen asked their statistician, the late Harry Robinson, to shut turn off the monitor. “I can’t concentrate,” Breen recalled telling Robinson. “The O.J. thing was so drawing, I said, ‘You gotta turn it off.’ So he goes to turn off the monitor and all the people around us, all friends, everybody we knew, screaming at us, ‘No, no! You can’t turn it off!’ Because they wanted to watch O.J. on the TV while they were at the Garden watching the game. And because we knew them so well, we kept it on. I’m just thinking, ‘this is just too bizarre, I can’t believe I’m in the middle of this.’”
Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff has developed quite a reputation as a complainer. Throughout the first-round series against the Knicks, Bickerstaff whined to referees about calls and it even shocked legendary commentator Mike Breen while he called Game 6 for MSG, “I’ve been doing this over 30 years,” Breen said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a coach argue this much, nonstop from the opening tip ’til now. If you talk to the players, Clyde (Frazier), they’ll tell you this is part of why they love this guy. They say, ‘He’s a dog, like the players. He’s fighting for it like the players.’ “But there comes a point where (referee) Tony Brothers is gonna say, ‘Another technical and you’re gone.’ It’s nonstop. It’s continuous.”
Mikal Bridges had to edit himself a bit after getting a little too fired up while speaking to MSG broadcaster Mike Breen after the Knicks’ dramatic 116-113 win over the Pistons to punch New York’s ticket to the second round of the NBA playoffs. Bridges was still basking in the victory when he threw on the headset as Breen started to ask him about what the conversation was like when the Knicks were trailing with under three minutes to go. “We built for this s–t. That’s all it is,” Bridges started to say.
Outside of the sports world, Brunson’s dagger got the reaction of many celebrities, including actor Jerry O’Connell, who posted a video on X. “We want Boston…we want Boston,” O’Connell yelled out. Actor and director Ben Stiller also expressed his support through a series of posts on X, with one addressing NBA broadcaster Mike Breen’s rare “double bang” call after the shot. Comedian Jon Stewart was clearly excited following the 28-year-old’s performance, posting “BRUNSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”