Mike Breen describes challenge of calling a blowout

Credit: ESPN

The Atlanta Hawks didn’t represent much of a challenge for the New York Knicks on Thursday night, but the blowout created a more challenging broadcast for Mike Breen.

In one of the most dominant performances in NBA playoff history, the Knicks advanced to the second round and ended Atlanta’s season with a 140-89 win over the Hawks. And it wasn’t even that close, with the Knicks leading by as many as 61 points before taking their foot off the pedal in the third quarter.

After seeing New York trail the Hawks 2-1 earlier in the series, Knicks fans don’t really know how to handle such a decisive win. And while Breen is a Knicks fan at heart, he similarly wasn’t fully prepared to call a national game that was essentially over in the first quarter. Breen joined ESPN New York’s afternoon radio show on Friday, where Alan Hahn asked about the challenge of trying to keep an audience during a blowout.

“Those are the hardest ones,” Breen admitted. “But you work together as a team with your analysts and the people in the truck. The first thing you do after you know the outcome is long gone in terms of we know who’s gonna win, you try to put it in historical perspective.”

Breen noted that his broadcast partners, Tim Legler and Richard Jefferson, were on the losing end of similarly large blowouts during their playing careers, which offered the opportunity to reflect on those experiences. And because the blowout occurred in a clinching game, they were also able to put a bow on the Hawks’ season while looking ahead at the next potential matchup for the Knicks.

“It is more challenging,” Breen continued. “We’d much rather have a one-point game decided in the final seconds, but it does give you an opportunity to get into some other topic.”

The good thing for Breen is that he has plenty of experience calling blowouts as the voice of the Knicks. Prior to the Leon Rose era, the Knicks spent years as one of the league’s worst teams. But calling blowouts alongside Walt Frazier on MSG is different from doing it on a national broadcast. As much as it was nice for Knicks fans to hear Breen call Thursday night’s series-clinching win, some awkward lulls highlighted the . Breen threw out several conversation starters that were shorter-lived than they would have been with a booth that has spent more seasons together.