There’s never been much love lost between Bill Simmons and Pat McAfee.
If anything, the tension’s just been napping.
Their cold war’s been mostly dormant since Simmons jabbed McAfee’s Caitlin Clark apology last year and openly wondered how long he’d actually stick around at ESPN. And while this latest moment doesn’t qualify as a direct shot, Simmons didn’t exactly hide his disapproval either.
The Ringer founder made it a point to single out McAfee’s hype-man routine during Game 4 of the NBA Finals, specifically, his in-arena monologue in which he fired off a few crowd-pumping lines about the Pacers being underdogs, took a playful swipe at Stephen A. Smith, and reminded everyone that no one actually believed in Indiana before they went up by three… with over nine minutes to go. They would go on to lose the game.
For Simmons, it wasn’t so much about the content of what McAfee said but when he said it.
Although there is a lot of irony in McAfee complaining about the Pacers being 6-point underdogs and them losing by 7.
Vegas knows. And the Sports Guy does, too.
“My big note is McAfee did this monologue with like 10 minutes left… This was like a crucial part of the game, and he was doing this thing about ‘We were six-point underdogs, and this is Indiana…’ It was just, it was the wrong timing,” Simmons told Zach Lowe. “I would’ve gone second quarter for that. It was like this massive part of the game. They actually had to stop the game and wait for the monologue to finish before they started playing again. I thought that was really weird.”
Bill Simmons on Pat McAfee’s segment during the 4th quarter of last night’s Finals game: “My big note is McAfee did this monologue with like 10 minutes left… it was the wrong timing… it was this massive part of the game, they actually had to stop the game and wait for the monologue to finish”
byu/sewsgup innba
McAfee’s rally-the-troops energy might’ve worked in the first half. But delivering a WWE-style promo with nine minutes left in the biggest Pacers game in decades is where Simmons drew the line. Indiana was up in the fourth quarter of an NBA Finals game, and the action came to a halt so McAfee could yell about underdog odds and Indiana pride. Simmons wasn’t wrong; it kind of hijacked the moment.
The real missed opportunity here, though, was Simmons not dusting off his surprisingly solid McAfee impression, which he’s been sitting on since last January.
After Simmons delivered the bit earlier last year, McAfee fired back weeks later by mocking Simmons’ failed FanDuel Super Bowl parlay. Simmons returned serve with a pointed comment about The Pat McAfee Show’s ratings on ESPN.
The barbs aren’t exactly nuclear, but at this point, they’re not pretending to like each other, either.
And we’ll have to wait and see until Monday’s The Pat McAfee Show to see if the former Indianapolis Colts punter responds to Simmons and Kendrick Perkins, too.