Latest / The Rope A Dope Radio Podcast / Living in Loserville: 3-1 Wolves Lead LA! Ant Playmaking! Jaden/Julius! 5-Man Closing Lineup & More!

Transcript

Living in Loserville: 3-1 Wolves Lead LA! Ant Playmaking! Jaden/Julius! 5-Man Closing Lineup & More! · The Rope A Dope Radio Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Minnesota basketball fans, Welcome back to the Living in Loserville podcast.
0:09
Speaker 1: We are live on a Monday night. Fortunately life gotten
0:13
Speaker 1: the way, Aaron wasn't able to join us. Hopefully he
0:15
Speaker 1: can join us on the next podcast. Man, oh mighty
0:20
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves. Our Timberwolves are up three to one on
0:25
Speaker 1: the mighty mighty Lakers. Where well, without a rim protector,
0:29
Speaker 1: they're not as mighty as some would assume. Now I'm
0:33
Speaker 1: gonna fully admit I picked them to lose in game
0:36
Speaker 1: seven or in seven games, okay, and so did my
0:40
Speaker 1: co host, either six or seven. We are writing that
0:44
Speaker 1: realm getting that game one we did talk about, or
0:50
Speaker 1: at least one of the first two games on the road,
0:52
Speaker 1: but they got game one. They destroyed in a game one,
0:56
Speaker 1: and that really opens up the series from there. So
1:01
Speaker 1: we'll be doing you know, some recap here, obviously more
1:05
Speaker 1: quick recap from games one in game two. Will break
1:08
Speaker 1: down the last two home games with more detail. And
1:13
Speaker 1: when I say home games, home victories, right, And that's
1:17
Speaker 1: another thing that you had to see it to believe it.
1:21
Speaker 1: Just like Ant being more of a playmaker or diagnosing
1:25
Speaker 1: the play quick enough to help out the team in general,
1:29
Speaker 1: you gotta you know, see it to believe it, and
1:33
Speaker 1: both of them those items have come true. Ant is
1:38
Speaker 1: doing a hell of a job. Randall's doing a great job.
1:42
Speaker 1: Our role players are, you know, going crazy. Jayden is
1:46
Speaker 1: ridiculous in three out of these four games. So but
1:51
Speaker 1: the home you know, the home court advantage, although it's
1:56
Speaker 1: nuts in there, you know, it's a college vibe in there.
2:00
Speaker 1: It this during the regular season, we were very mediocre
2:06
Speaker 1: and we've lost many of games, not just last year.
2:11
Speaker 1: You date back to that Memphis series. You know, we
2:15
Speaker 1: won game one and that ended up losing two out
2:17
Speaker 1: of the three of our home games, lost in game
2:19
Speaker 1: sex six at home. So it was a worry, a
2:24
Speaker 1: legit worry, but man, it was nice to get that
2:26
Speaker 1: out of the way.
2:27
Speaker 2: So we're gonna break it all down.
2:30
Speaker 1: Kind of go through, you know, a variety of keys
2:36
Speaker 1: to the to the series thus far. Obviously it's not
2:41
Speaker 1: over just off the off the rip, like attacking Luka
2:48
Speaker 1: on defense, Ann Reeves has been a thing of beauty
2:53
Speaker 1: and it's something that for whatever reason, we just didn't
2:57
Speaker 1: do enough of last series against Dallas. Now, you know,
3:02
Speaker 1: offensively containing Luca is a little less difficult when they
3:08
Speaker 1: don't have a true lop threat. We're seeing that right.
3:11
Speaker 1: If you look at his assist number, it's low for
3:15
Speaker 1: him because he's kind of got that Jokic vibe where,
3:19
Speaker 1: hey man, if he scores thirty something, it's better than
3:23
Speaker 1: twenty eight or twenty four and fourteen assists, you know
3:28
Speaker 1: what I mean. So we're gonna break it all down.
3:30
Speaker 1: Like I said, we'll kind of quickly talk about game one,
3:33
Speaker 1: Game two, but we'll go more detail in general, and
3:39
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the last two games in the last
3:43
Speaker 1: whatever minutes clutch time minutes. That's another thing. How will
3:47
Speaker 1: this team perform in the clutch? Well, these last two
3:50
Speaker 1: games were technically in the clutch and they came up
3:54
Speaker 1: big time. Ant leading the pack with that if you
3:58
Speaker 1: look at Ant versus Luca Clutchers just in the fourth corner.
4:01
Speaker 1: In general, we'll talk a little bit about that, but
4:04
Speaker 1: that lineup with Aunt, Dante, Jadeen, Randal, and Naz, it's early.
4:10
Speaker 1: They don't have a rim protector if Houston, if we
4:14
Speaker 1: win this series and Houston wins it, we're gonna probably
4:17
Speaker 1: need Rudy in that one, right, Like we don't want
4:20
Speaker 1: to run away too far from Rudy just yet. Okay,
4:24
Speaker 1: I thought in game one, in Game four he was
4:26
Speaker 1: effective game two, in Game three, not as effective defensively
4:32
Speaker 1: though he hasn't been. That's the thing about Rudy. Oh,
4:36
Speaker 1: they're gonna play him off the court. They're gonna play
4:38
Speaker 1: him off the court. They're gonna play him out the court.
4:39
Speaker 1: It's not defensively being played off the court. I mean,
4:44
Speaker 1: for all the analytics heads out there, go look at
4:48
Speaker 1: your analytics. It's not that it's offensively where the issue
4:54
Speaker 1: can be. And if you don't have four shooters, it
4:59
Speaker 1: gets a little fun if you don't have a guard
5:02
Speaker 1: that loves the pick and roll. Like, to be honest
5:05
Speaker 1: with you, Luca and Rudy would be a good matchup together,
5:08
Speaker 1: you know, because, like I mean, Utah, I had plenty
5:14
Speaker 1: of great offenses, you know, but they just didn't have
5:18
Speaker 1: the defenders that we have.
5:19
Speaker 2: Anyway, we're not gonna this isn't about Rudy, damn it.
5:22
Speaker 1: But that that could be our starting five of the future,
5:27
Speaker 1: is the point. And with the extent, well, we're not
5:31
Speaker 1: even gonna get that.
5:32
Speaker 2: We're not gonna get that.
5:34
Speaker 1: I'm getting ahead of myself.
5:35
Speaker 2: If this is your.
5:36
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Speaker 2: That's direct TV stream anyway.
7:00
Speaker 1: Just kind of you know, talking about the first game
7:04
Speaker 1: lightly not too much detail, but you know, Luca was
7:08
Speaker 1: obviously going nuts early. It kind of felt like the
7:11
Speaker 1: closer for Game five last year, remember when he was
7:13
Speaker 1: like launching threes from half court almost and he was
7:16
Speaker 1: trying to end it. In that first twelve minutes he
7:19
Speaker 1: was coming out, he was coming out, and it felt
7:23
Speaker 1: like it was stuck on, stuck on, like fifteen to
7:28
Speaker 1: seven for a little bit.
7:32
Speaker 2: Rudy had two falls, he got him really early. Luca,
7:37
Speaker 2: like I said, was just going off.
7:38
Speaker 1: Man. It was. It was twenty to twelve, right around
7:43
Speaker 1: three minute mark somewhere in there, and second chance points,
7:51
Speaker 1: you know, early we were down eleven and two in
7:53
Speaker 1: that category. Luca had sixteen I think in the first quarter,
7:56
Speaker 1: but it was twenty eight to twenty one. They got
7:59
Speaker 1: it a little bit more under control, and before you
8:03
Speaker 1: know it, Jaden had these two put back rebounds, and
8:11
Speaker 1: early on they took the lead to Turner Wolves, and
8:15
Speaker 1: they had a stretch where it was a fourteen to
8:18
Speaker 1: two run and next thing you know, it's thirty five
8:21
Speaker 1: to thirty. At the eight thirty Mark Nas hits back
8:24
Speaker 1: to back threes. It extends the lead. Rudy came in, boom,
8:28
Speaker 1: gotta follow. He went back out. There was like a
8:35
Speaker 1: deep deep three at the buzzer by Danze and it's
8:39
Speaker 1: fifty nine to forty eight. Feeling pretty good. Timberwolves. I
8:44
Speaker 1: think they were four or four from three right away.
8:47
Speaker 1: It was seventy to forty eight, you know what I mean.
8:49
Speaker 1: We just jumped on him and went on a fourteen
8:54
Speaker 1: to ohero run. Randall had an n one and a
8:56
Speaker 1: put back or off of a put back, which he's man,
8:59
Speaker 1: he's good for, or an offensive rebound fall every game
9:02
Speaker 1: if not to.
9:06
Speaker 2: And they just they just played great.
9:07
Speaker 1: Man. It was fifteen of twenty six from three at
9:11
Speaker 1: like the eight minute mark of the third. Ultimately, what
9:15
Speaker 1: was it, twenty two threes I think they hit it was.
9:20
Speaker 2: It was crazy.
9:21
Speaker 1: And now Ant had this time where he left the
9:23
Speaker 1: game with cramps. Luckily it was just cramps. Lebron and
9:29
Speaker 1: Reeves had like a good quarter and a half at
9:32
Speaker 1: separate times, but they just weren't as effective. Luca did
9:37
Speaker 1: have that rainbow of three that kept him around. I
9:41
Speaker 1: guess you could say, but fast breakpoints something that has
9:44
Speaker 1: been harped on all year when it comes to the
9:47
Speaker 1: Timberwolves and really the last few years. Twenty three to
9:49
Speaker 1: four at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but when
9:53
Speaker 1: Ant left third and fourth it was a twenty to
9:58
Speaker 1: eight run. So under eight minutes fourth quarter, one oh
10:01
Speaker 1: four to eighty eight. Jayden just going off. I mean,
10:05
Speaker 1: he was so efficient the bench. It was forty three
10:08
Speaker 1: to thirteen. You know, for a second there, I thought,
10:11
Speaker 1: hold on, dude, you know, we got this lead in
10:13
Speaker 1: the Milwaukee game, and you know, you start to you
10:16
Speaker 1: start to worry a little bit, but it really didn't matter.
10:20
Speaker 1: And I think Jayden was like eleven or thirteen something
10:24
Speaker 1: like that. It was crazy. So a great, great first game,
10:29
Speaker 1: get that win, and it was comfortable. They just slid
10:33
Speaker 1: past him in the fourth, no problem, no big comeback.
10:36
Speaker 1: They didn't cut it to five or anything like that.
10:39
Speaker 1: So that was that was nice. Obviously, early game two,
10:47
Speaker 1: Randall came to play. There was early in that game
10:50
Speaker 1: he did complain to the refs not getting back on defense.
10:54
Speaker 1: But other than that, you know, for the most part, anyway,
10:59
Speaker 1: he played great. I thought, I thought he's the one
11:01
Speaker 1: that came to play. We had some like issues with
11:04
Speaker 1: three throws early on and kind of banged into somebody
11:09
Speaker 1: with on a screen and kind of messed up his
11:12
Speaker 1: shoulder a little bit. Luca was definitely hot once again
11:17
Speaker 1: right at that fifteen to eight. It was a fifteen
11:20
Speaker 1: to seven game, one, fifteen to eight, five twenty two mark.
11:24
Speaker 1: Not much ball movement for the timber Wolves, pretty sloppy play.
11:28
Speaker 1: Dante had two falls in less than five minutes. I
11:31
Speaker 1: do think one of them was bullshit, but he had
11:33
Speaker 1: a rough game. Him and Nas had a rough game
11:36
Speaker 1: that falls. You know, it was like Dante would just
11:39
Speaker 1: get in oak fall, just like how he got his
11:41
Speaker 1: third fall two. So it was like twenty five to
11:46
Speaker 1: ten and thirty four to fifteen. I think Luca had
11:49
Speaker 1: fourteen points in the first quarter, so you know, we're
11:53
Speaker 1: getting our ass kicked basically in forty to twenty one,
11:58
Speaker 1: you know, under five minutes. It was a heavy whistle,
12:04
Speaker 1: a lot of whistles in this game. Lebron doing his
12:09
Speaker 1: things that the you know, definitely the fowls are adding
12:13
Speaker 1: up and it just you know, it was weird, man.
12:19
Speaker 1: You know, Aunt missed the wide open layup, Randall made
12:25
Speaker 1: up for it with a crazy dunk, but it was
12:27
Speaker 1: just I don't know. It was fifty eight to forty
12:29
Speaker 1: three and a half. Aunt started heating up. He did
12:32
Speaker 1: get to seventeen points, started started getting going Dante, you know,
12:37
Speaker 1: seconds after he checked in picked up his fourth. It
12:39
Speaker 1: was sixty two to forty nine with eight minutes left.
12:43
Speaker 1: They cut into it a little bit, but then boom,
12:46
Speaker 1: they went right back out and spread it out. I
12:49
Speaker 1: think that's where JJ was really heated. JJ Reddick was
12:55
Speaker 1: really heated at him, and they proceeded to go in
12:57
Speaker 1: like a seven or eight eight O nine oh run
13:00
Speaker 1: something like that, and and it was kind of like that,
13:04
Speaker 1: like we made it interesting. I think we got it
13:07
Speaker 1: to eighty six seventy five under eight minutes to play.
13:10
Speaker 1: In the fourth, Jaden was blocked, but he did get
13:13
Speaker 1: a nice little putback layup and he had a nice block,
13:19
Speaker 1: and there was a moment where if Aunt, I think
13:23
Speaker 1: it was a Randalls screen, if Aunt hits a three,
13:25
Speaker 1: it's eighty six to eighty. But he didn't, and that's
13:30
Speaker 1: pretty much the closest it was. It was gonna get
13:33
Speaker 1: eighty six to seventy seven, and they just didn't just
13:38
Speaker 1: didn't shoot the ball well.
13:40
Speaker 2: Which was obvious. You knew they weren't gonna.
13:42
Speaker 1: Do what they had done, you know with the shooting
13:46
Speaker 1: in the in game one and really from three havn't like,
13:52
Speaker 1: you know, lit it up or anything like that. But
13:54
Speaker 1: it just it's kind of timely threes. Now we get
13:58
Speaker 1: into game three and it's one to one, and we
14:01
Speaker 1: know game one is a pretty good predictor, right if
14:06
Speaker 1: you're the home team, But three, Game three and game
14:11
Speaker 1: five obviously, you know, every time I bring up the stats,
14:13
Speaker 1: someone's like, no, game seven is the most important. Yeah,
14:16
Speaker 1: we know, we know you gotta win game seven to
14:19
Speaker 1: move on, but game three and game five home more away,
14:26
Speaker 1: it means a lot. If you win game three and
14:29
Speaker 1: you win game five and series most time, like at
14:33
Speaker 1: a high clip, you're winning that series. So I was
14:36
Speaker 1: focused in here, and I got to admit it was
14:38
Speaker 1: one one. I thought, you know what, especially after they
14:42
Speaker 1: did win game three, I thought it probably more likely.
14:45
Speaker 1: It's kind of come back to to game five. Still,
14:49
Speaker 1: you know, in pretty decent shape really because we're a
14:52
Speaker 1: great road team, so win game six, win five or seven.
14:57
Speaker 2: Still, I was feeling pretty good.
14:58
Speaker 1: Once we win that first game, it opened it up
15:01
Speaker 1: that's something we stressed at, you know, in the in
15:05
Speaker 1: the last podcast last Monday, because it just it just
15:09
Speaker 1: means so much. Anyway, we started out, we meaning the
15:13
Speaker 1: Timberwolves pretty damn hot. It's like a nine to zero
15:16
Speaker 1: run in there. Five of five. Jaden and Julius came
15:22
Speaker 1: to play. You could just tell right away. Rudy had
15:25
Speaker 1: a great block. He was drawing fouls. You know, it's like, oh,
15:30
Speaker 1: what's this all about. But you know, they started out
15:34
Speaker 1: real hot, and they were like, you know, one of
15:37
Speaker 1: seven from the field. La kind of got back right
15:41
Speaker 1: in the game, and but Jaden really really aggressive, you know,
15:47
Speaker 1: didn't miss the field goal for a little bit. I
15:49
Speaker 1: think he got up to five of five something like that.
15:53
Speaker 1: And the Lakers, you know, six turnovers in that first quarter.
15:56
Speaker 1: Timberroves up thirty two to twenty six points in the
15:59
Speaker 1: pain sixteen to six in favor of the Timberwolves, and
16:03
Speaker 1: nine points off those six turnovers. Talked about fast great points,
16:08
Speaker 1: talk about turnovers turning them into points, something that we
16:12
Speaker 1: haven't been great at, and that was pretty pretty clutch.
16:16
Speaker 2: Now, La came right out nine zero run tie game.
16:20
Speaker 2: Lebron you know, was doing his thing.
16:24
Speaker 1: I think, you know, midway points somewhere around there. He
16:27
Speaker 1: had twenty points fourteenth in the I think in the
16:30
Speaker 1: second fourteen with about five minutes left, it was forty
16:35
Speaker 1: three to forty one. Randall had fourteen. By that time,
16:39
Speaker 1: Jayden was in double digits and it was fifty eight
16:41
Speaker 1: forty five at half LA's out and they you know,
16:46
Speaker 1: you could see they were starting to stretch it a
16:48
Speaker 1: little bit. You could definitely, you could definitely see that.
16:51
Speaker 1: But it was just about just hanging around, you know,
16:57
Speaker 1: and because they're gonna go on runs that that's bad, right,
17:00
Speaker 1: But Jayden, you know, early on driving to the bucket
17:03
Speaker 1: for his eighteenth point in that he was nine to fifteen.
17:06
Speaker 1: Timberrolves had an eight zero run. They're up with under
17:09
Speaker 1: eight minutes left, sixty seven to sixty three, and that's
17:13
Speaker 1: right around the time and had that two handed dunk
17:16
Speaker 1: that he said he was mad about it because he
17:18
Speaker 1: said he could have really cocked that thing back. And
17:21
Speaker 1: now that I think about it, especially from the angles,
17:23
Speaker 1: it looked like a cool dunk because he usually doesn't
17:25
Speaker 1: two handed, but that little float where he he holds
17:29
Speaker 1: it for a little bit and kind of adjusts in
17:31
Speaker 1: the air. I thought that was pretty pretty nasty. But
17:37
Speaker 1: back to back threes brought the Lakers within two at
17:41
Speaker 1: the end of the third eighty six, eighty four and
17:45
Speaker 1: still like ninety three to ninety nine minute mark, and
17:49
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves started to open up a lead until Lebron
17:53
Speaker 1: hit not one, not two, but three three straight three
17:59
Speaker 1: pointers and with four minutes left, right around there was
18:03
Speaker 1: one o three to one oh three, and there was
18:08
Speaker 1: you know, we had that Aunt Dante Jaden nas Randall
18:11
Speaker 1: lineup that we talked about in the beginning of the show.
18:17
Speaker 1: There was moments though you could tell Dante's shots off
18:20
Speaker 1: because two separate times, it's like, shoot the fucking ball, Dante.
18:26
Speaker 1: You're wide open, dude, I don't care if you missed
18:28
Speaker 1: eighteen in a row. Easy for me to say on
18:31
Speaker 1: the sidelines, but he needed to shoot that damn ball.
18:34
Speaker 1: But there's just no way around it. He needed to
18:37
Speaker 1: shoot the ball and he didn't.
18:40
Speaker 2: That's okay, though, because.
18:44
Speaker 1: We just we closed out strong dude, thirteen to one run,
18:50
Speaker 1: just close the game on him, and before you know it,
18:53
Speaker 1: you're looking at it, you're like, oh, wait, you know
18:56
Speaker 1: that's a that's a double digit win.
18:59
Speaker 2: Like one seen to one oh four.
19:02
Speaker 1: You know, sure didn't feel that way, but it was
19:05
Speaker 1: they closed strong and an't assisted or scored on everything
19:09
Speaker 1: to do with it. So we talked about clunch time
19:14
Speaker 1: in our struggles. You know, we had the most clutch
19:17
Speaker 1: games in the league and we had the worst record.
19:19
Speaker 1: And the reality as far as the regular season was
19:24
Speaker 1: Ant had the second most points at clutch or no,
19:27
Speaker 1: the most points by one point, and he didn't win
19:33
Speaker 1: the Clutch Player of the Year, and I don't think
19:35
Speaker 1: he should have. I think a lot of those points
19:37
Speaker 1: came because we are in a lot of tight games.
19:40
Speaker 1: But if you look at his decision making, if you
19:42
Speaker 1: look at a shot selection in those clutch moments, especially
19:45
Speaker 1: the last shot or under a minute, it's been a
19:48
Speaker 1: bunch of difficult shots. It's been a bunch of euro ball,
19:52
Speaker 1: and we're not seeing that. Like heroball is a little
19:55
Speaker 1: different when you're a when you're on a run, Like
19:59
Speaker 1: if you're like heat checks is you know, I get it,
20:03
Speaker 1: I get the heat checked, but you got to really
20:05
Speaker 1: be hot. You know, you can't just heat check the
20:08
Speaker 1: heat check. And and that's a huge jump. We know
20:14
Speaker 1: his game rises in the playoffs. It just does not
20:18
Speaker 1: just scoring, just in general. Having that time off to
20:22
Speaker 1: really focus in on the film study. It really helps him.
20:27
Speaker 1: It helps the whole team obviously. And you know, it's
20:31
Speaker 1: funny because if you go back a few years ago,
20:34
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have put him in the top ten, but
20:37
Speaker 1: by the end of the year with playoffs, he put
20:40
Speaker 1: him in the top ten. Then he kind of folds
20:42
Speaker 1: out of it a little bit and you're like, hey,
20:44
Speaker 1: he's right around top ten and then he's knocking at
20:47
Speaker 1: the door like top eight by the end of the playoffs,
20:50
Speaker 1: you know, and last year, same thing, and people are
20:52
Speaker 1: already saying it this year, oh he's top five. Well
20:54
Speaker 1: I wouldn't put him top five just yet, but he
20:58
Speaker 1: just keeps rising in the playoffs. And obviously you'd love
21:02
Speaker 1: to see bad game or not as far as shooting.
21:06
Speaker 1: You just love to see him have this type of
21:09
Speaker 1: like focus no matter who we're playing, and that'll be
21:12
Speaker 1: something he'll build on hopefully. But you know, he's just
21:18
Speaker 1: been phenomenally he's last two games, especially in the clutch time.
21:22
Speaker 1: And so we go to game four yesterday less than
21:26
Speaker 1: forty eight hours. You got that lazy afternoon game in
21:30
Speaker 1: the NBA. You know, if it's Sunday during the regular season,
21:34
Speaker 1: those games can be funky unless you are on ABC
21:38
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you know, it means more
21:40
Speaker 1: or whatever. So I was wondering, you know, how are
21:43
Speaker 1: they gonna how are they gonna come out, how are
21:47
Speaker 1: they gonna do this? And you know, we know Luca
21:51
Speaker 1: had had about with the some sort of stomach thing
21:55
Speaker 1: he was puking during the day and all that stuff,
21:58
Speaker 1: and you know, it is what it. I do think, whoever,
22:03
Speaker 1: whatever company like serve the food, we should probably give
22:06
Speaker 1: him tax cuts for a while. I'm not a big
22:09
Speaker 1: tax cut guy unless you're talking small business. Right, let's
22:14
Speaker 1: deregulate the small business, not necessarily all the large corporations.
22:19
Speaker 1: But I think they're in line for some sort of
22:22
Speaker 1: tax rebate or something. You know. It was a slow
22:28
Speaker 1: start again with a lot of slow starts in this series,
22:35
Speaker 1: but great fourth quarters for the most part for the
22:37
Speaker 1: timber Wolves. Randall had all. It was seven to seven
22:41
Speaker 1: a thirty mark yesterday afternoon and Randall had all the
22:44
Speaker 1: seven points. Randall was going crazy. La had a little
22:49
Speaker 1: bit of lead, nothing.
22:51
Speaker 2: Too crazy at the start.
22:53
Speaker 1: I did notice Lebron was getting a bunch of offensive
22:57
Speaker 1: rebounds and getting fouled, and you know it resulted in
23:01
Speaker 1: like four quick free throws. Another thing I noticed Luca
23:07
Speaker 1: was getting the ball closer to the hoop, or getting
23:12
Speaker 1: closer to the hoop before he decides what he's gonna do,
23:16
Speaker 1: shoot her pass, you know, and that wasn't a good thing.
23:20
Speaker 1: When he gets the ball close, you're pretty fucked, to
23:23
Speaker 1: be honest with you. But when he's able to go
23:28
Speaker 1: into the defense and get that close, you're pretty fucked.
23:32
Speaker 1: But the lob threat, like I said, we've seen that missing,
23:37
Speaker 1: and the two bigs they had, and just the role
23:40
Speaker 1: players just you know, Reeves solid offensive player, he could score.
23:48
Speaker 2: Chimurachama had a.
23:51
Speaker 1: Great game, actually very good game. He's solid player, solid player,
23:56
Speaker 1: But they just don't go that deep. And after I'm
23:59
Speaker 1: done talking about this movie, kind of go over topics
24:01
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I had a player rankings listed list.
24:05
Speaker 1: I should say that a few people didn't, you know,
24:09
Speaker 1: they didn't like where I put Reefs. You know, some
24:16
Speaker 1: people had him above Randal. You know, in this series,
24:20
Speaker 1: I could see you could say he's right there with
24:23
Speaker 1: Rudy or whatever. But it's pretty far down the list
24:30
Speaker 1: with Nas and Alexander Walker and Dante and McDaniels and
24:35
Speaker 1: Conley and you know the role players. We just got
24:40
Speaker 1: better role players, dude. And right now Randall's playing out
24:43
Speaker 1: of his mind. So anyway, I did notice that right away,
24:49
Speaker 1: Luca getting the ball, Lebron getting falled, Luca getting the ball.
24:53
Speaker 1: That's not something that you, of course you couldn't notice that,
24:55
Speaker 1: but I'm saying, you know, too close to the rim
24:58
Speaker 1: and Rudy. They ran a play for Rudy, and you
25:00
Speaker 1: know it, just grab the fucking ball. That's your ball, Rudy. Like,
25:07
Speaker 1: I don't know if he has does it act like
25:10
Speaker 1: it's a croissant or so, I don't know what he's
25:12
Speaker 1: got to do, but just grab the ball. I think
25:14
Speaker 1: he's so focused in his mind on like his and
25:17
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use this term real vaguely footwork, but you know,
25:22
Speaker 1: I think he's so worried about what his body's doing
25:25
Speaker 1: that he's like, oh, that's right, the ball, or he'll
25:27
Speaker 1: try to do a power dribble. It's like, dude, you're tall,
25:30
Speaker 1: put the ball higher, don't put the ball on the
25:32
Speaker 1: ground anyway, right away, you know he needs to finish
25:37
Speaker 1: shit with. That's you know, what do you know now?
25:41
Speaker 1: Nas did struggle until late. You know, he picked up
25:44
Speaker 1: early falls. Luca dro by him twice easy. Rudy picked
25:50
Speaker 1: up some early falls too, He had two falls pretty early.
25:52
Speaker 1: He was twenty two to sixteen under four minutes. Shannon
25:55
Speaker 1: checked in for Nas actually points in the paint at
25:59
Speaker 1: that point, fourteen to eight in LA and the first
26:04
Speaker 1: quarter only had one turnover. Randall was doing, you know,
26:08
Speaker 1: big things though, thirteen points five of eight and did
26:13
Speaker 1: get it going late though, and hit back to back
26:15
Speaker 1: threes the Lakers pretty early We're shooting fifty percent to
26:19
Speaker 1: our thirty three percent. But it was thirty two to
26:22
Speaker 1: twenty eight at the end of the first and so
26:28
Speaker 1: you know, you're like, hey, dude, we're not down by
26:31
Speaker 1: fifteen or anything. We're good at it. In Reeves, although
26:35
Speaker 1: he got going late in the game, he definitely did.
26:39
Speaker 1: He had a good look to tie the game, but
26:42
Speaker 1: he got a third fall early. Four or five turnovers
26:46
Speaker 1: fairly early in that third quarter.
26:49
Speaker 2: Helped us out so eight.
26:52
Speaker 1: Right around the eight thirty ish mark, it was thirty
26:55
Speaker 1: eight to thirty four Lakers. Randle up to sixteen points
27:00
Speaker 1: offensive rebounds, and that's you know, it's not just your
27:04
Speaker 1: big scoring. Obviously, Randal and Naz have done the scoring.
27:08
Speaker 1: We don't expect Rudy to get twenty eight points. But
27:13
Speaker 1: I did think his rebounds and his defense were solid
27:17
Speaker 1: in Game one and Game four. Overall, his defense has
27:20
Speaker 1: been fine, but there's just certain times where he's just
27:26
Speaker 1: he just hasn't been able to grab a rebound here
27:28
Speaker 1: or there. But I thought he was pretty steady when
27:29
Speaker 1: it came to that yesterday, but Nas missed a rotation,
27:37
Speaker 1: had a turnover. It just didn't look good. Back to
27:39
Speaker 1: back threes by Luca. He was like three or five
27:42
Speaker 1: at that time, nineteen points. Lebron is up to like
27:46
Speaker 1: eight a tenths from the free throw line, six to eleven,
27:51
Speaker 1: mark forty four to forty. Dante just cannot get it
27:55
Speaker 1: to fall. He missed two layups. One of them was
27:58
Speaker 1: pretty tough layup, but he just he just couldn't get it.
28:01
Speaker 1: He couldn't get he couldn't get the thing to fall.
28:03
Speaker 1: But much like Nas, he did step up late, and
28:07
Speaker 1: both of their energy still is needed even if their
28:10
Speaker 1: shots not falling, especially defensively with Dante, he still was
28:15
Speaker 1: doing his thing there. But physicality has been a part
28:21
Speaker 1: of this series that slowly but surely it's getting there
28:27
Speaker 1: right And it's not like the Knicks, you know, Detroit series,
28:32
Speaker 1: but it Game four was a lot more physical, and
28:35
Speaker 1: that's when Aunt and Lebron we're getting a little pushy.
28:38
Speaker 1: Shovy Ant kind of did his Paul Pierce impression where
28:43
Speaker 1: it looked like he may have torn something and he's like, no,
28:46
Speaker 1: I'm good or good, I just call the time out.
28:48
Speaker 2: I'm back up.
28:48
Speaker 1: You know. Timberwolves had like a nice nine to ozer
28:52
Speaker 1: run I think twelve three overall to close and ended
28:56
Speaker 1: up having the lead sixty fifty eight at half. N
29:00
Speaker 1: doing his thing twenty two points four or five only
29:03
Speaker 1: four if only five shots twenty one points or whatever,
29:06
Speaker 1: that that's pretty good. Luca had that two twenty one
29:08
Speaker 1: points and had he was six and nine nineteen points,
29:12
Speaker 1: and I think what was if Randall had like twenty
29:15
Speaker 1: at half or something like that. He hit that three
29:17
Speaker 1: almost like a walk off three. He was walking off
29:20
Speaker 1: like the the half was over, and I know it's like, hey, dude,
29:25
Speaker 1: there is shit going on. But anyway, right after the
29:29
Speaker 1: bat though, La played great in that third quarter, thirty
29:34
Speaker 1: six to twenty three, and like I said, eight oh,
29:37
Speaker 1: run were down eleven ozer run. It went up to
29:41
Speaker 1: fourteen oh. And it's seventy two to sixty one. I
29:45
Speaker 1: think that was the biggest lead eleven under eight minutes.
29:51
Speaker 1: Conley had a great block. He got a little banged up,
29:54
Speaker 1: but I guess he's okay. And at that point, talking
29:57
Speaker 1: about you know, the points, we talked about how Randal
30:00
Speaker 1: and Nas and Rudy are gonna have to dominate at
30:03
Speaker 1: what they do because the lack of big and it
30:07
Speaker 1: was fifteen rebounds at that time. I think it was
30:09
Speaker 1: eight sorry, fifteen offensive rebounds. I think it was eighteen
30:13
Speaker 1: for the game. That's really really important obviously, But you know,
30:20
Speaker 1: the Timberwolves went on a nice little run, cut it
30:22
Speaker 1: to seventy two to seventy with six minutes left, Randle
30:25
Speaker 1: up to twenty one points, I think, or twenty three.
30:28
Speaker 1: Something like that. Hachimura, you know, hitting threes, doing his thing.
30:35
Speaker 1: Like I said, Reeves heating up in this quarter as well.
30:39
Speaker 1: It's eighty eight to seventy eight under two minutes. In
30:42
Speaker 1: ninety four to eighty four at the end of the court,
30:46
Speaker 1: like I said, thirty six to twenty three. Got out
30:49
Speaker 1: play majorly right. Defense just wasn't there. And to be fair,
30:54
Speaker 1: you know, they got hot. They're gonna get hot. They're
30:56
Speaker 1: a talented offensive team.
30:59
Speaker 2: Very so so when it comes to defense. But they're hot.
31:04
Speaker 1: And it was, you know, still early, but it was
31:08
Speaker 1: ninety nine to ninety and you know, ninety nine to
31:11
Speaker 1: ninety five. We started to cut into the lead one
31:14
Speaker 1: O nine ninety seven with five thirty nine to play, and.
31:19
Speaker 2: I'm still like, all right, dude, you.
31:21
Speaker 1: Know, like okay, you know we're we're cutting into this
31:26
Speaker 1: thing a little bit. Nas checks in, hits a three,
31:30
Speaker 1: has like a does a little like shimmy shake to
31:34
Speaker 1: the to the rack, hits another three later, and he
31:39
Speaker 1: hits that three though right after he checks in, and
31:42
Speaker 1: that's part of that five man lineup that's been closing.
31:45
Speaker 1: And they put up the stat after he hit that
31:47
Speaker 1: other three that he was nine for nine and I
31:49
Speaker 1: think he's now nine of ten from the field and
31:53
Speaker 1: then like seven to seven from three or something like
31:56
Speaker 1: that in the fourth quarter in this series, and was
31:59
Speaker 1: followed by Luca on a three. He hits all three
32:03
Speaker 1: of them the free throws and we take the lead
32:05
Speaker 1: one O five, one oh four, under four minutes to play,
32:08
Speaker 1: watching more at another three, they take the lead. Nas hits
32:11
Speaker 1: the three. We get it back Dante n one with
32:16
Speaker 1: the left delay one O seven or sorry, one eleven,
32:20
Speaker 1: one O seven, two to eleven left overall a fourteen
32:23
Speaker 1: to three run. But Reeves comes back, hits a three
32:27
Speaker 1: and they got the lead again. The lebron had a
32:31
Speaker 1: nasty block. Nas has a turnover on a drive. Finny
32:38
Speaker 1: Smith hits a three third back up, it's one thirteen,
32:41
Speaker 1: one eleven, a buck twenty four left and now you're like, okay, man,
32:46
Speaker 1: here we go again. You know, like whatever it is,
32:49
Speaker 1: what it is, you know, in my mind, I'm like,
32:51
Speaker 1: all right, let's see what happens in Aunt. They doubled them,
32:55
Speaker 1: They rushed him right away. He was able to drive
32:57
Speaker 1: to the left part of the you know, the court,
33:01
Speaker 1: and he passed the Knas who passed right to Jayden
33:04
Speaker 1: and one dunk we take the lead. He hits the
33:07
Speaker 1: free throw. There was a little you know there. It's
33:13
Speaker 1: so funny how this thing happens. You know, last year,
33:18
Speaker 1: we know Jaden was pushed by Kyrie. Yeah, the ball
33:22
Speaker 1: went out of bounce, but he was fouled. But last
33:25
Speaker 1: year they couldn't call the fall on a review. Now, yeah,
33:33
Speaker 1: you can't, like they were whatever you went in the review,
33:37
Speaker 1: Booth four is what you could call. You couldn't couldn't
33:41
Speaker 1: do anything else, whether it is yes or no or whatever.
33:44
Speaker 1: But this year they changed it. And that's what always
33:47
Speaker 1: kind of sticks with me is we Jaden would we
33:50
Speaker 1: would have had the ball and I believe free throws. Instead,
33:55
Speaker 1: Luca got the ball and you know, won the game,
33:59
Speaker 1: but that problem, you know, it wouldn't have been a
34:01
Speaker 1: game winner because he didn't get followed on the play.
34:04
Speaker 2: So it's just funny how it came.
34:08
Speaker 1: Back this year in the clutch for us, just like
34:11
Speaker 1: and and the Wolves have been performing so well in
34:14
Speaker 1: the clutch. But the hand is Lebron. I'm with you, buddy.
34:19
Speaker 1: The hand is part of the ball, but the wrist isn't.
34:23
Speaker 1: The wrist isn't and you got pretty much all wrists.
34:27
Speaker 1: So that was a fall. You know, he hits the
34:31
Speaker 1: he hits the you know, the two free throws go
34:34
Speaker 1: up one sixteen, one to thirteen. Luca has the ball,
34:37
Speaker 1: Lebron pass passed the Lebron, Lebron passed the Reeves Reefs
34:41
Speaker 1: open and he just missed the shot.
34:44
Speaker 2: That's it. He missed the shot.
34:45
Speaker 1: No big deal. So another great closing the clutch. And
34:52
Speaker 1: I think it was fourteen of the twenty points or
34:54
Speaker 1: something like that that Ann had something to do with,
34:58
Speaker 1: you know, pass shoot whatever, score and you know, their
35:03
Speaker 1: role players did stand up though. You know, Reeves seventeen
35:07
Speaker 1: points at Shamura twenty three to five to ten, from three,
35:10
Speaker 1: five to twelve, five to twelve, twenty seven to twelve
35:16
Speaker 1: and eight.
35:18
Speaker 2: That's lebron.
35:19
Speaker 1: So I mean only add that those two threes from
35:23
Speaker 1: uh Finny Smith off the bench. Otherwise everybody had donuts.
35:27
Speaker 1: They had nineteen threes. Let's not forget that we had fourteen.
35:31
Speaker 1: I think they had seventeen last game, but they had
35:34
Speaker 1: nineteen threes, so they shot forty five percent of the field.
35:40
Speaker 1: We didn't shoot all that well either, actually, but yeah,
35:46
Speaker 1: eighteen offensive rebounds to eleven and.
35:52
Speaker 2: You know, we're just.
35:54
Speaker 1: We're just finally doing our thing in the fourth quarter.
36:00
Speaker 1: And if you look at it now, it's you know,
36:03
Speaker 1: it's four games. Luca's five to seventeen from the field
36:07
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarder he didn't score last night he
36:10
Speaker 1: was feeling better because he had a little tummy ache.
36:15
Speaker 1: Not though, so five to seventeen in this series. In
36:21
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter, ant doubled them up so far ten
36:27
Speaker 1: made field goals on twenty three, so he has more attempts,
36:30
Speaker 1: but still he double it up, and ant is seven
36:34
Speaker 1: assists to one. Luca has had one assist so far
36:40
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter in this series. And that's where
36:43
Speaker 1: the lob threat is not there right now. It's just
36:48
Speaker 1: not it's just not. So that's been big, that's obviously
36:55
Speaker 1: been really really big, and so you know that Aunt
37:01
Speaker 1: Dante Jaden Randall ns. Will that work in every series,
37:06
Speaker 1: in every game from here until Infinity?
37:08
Speaker 2: No, it won't.
37:10
Speaker 1: I mean maybe we'll see, but it is, it's it's
37:16
Speaker 1: hard not to think of, you know, there's what's going
37:22
Speaker 1: on right now, you still got to win this series,
37:24
Speaker 1: and then there's just you know, the future, right and
37:26
Speaker 1: you start to think, hmm. But Edwards three point eight
37:32
Speaker 1: eight turnovers assist a turnover.
37:34
Speaker 2: He's averaged just short of thirty in the series.
37:37
Speaker 1: Randal twenty two and a half, McDaniel's just short of
37:41
Speaker 1: twenty read just short of fourteen, and then it kind
37:45
Speaker 1: of falls off from there, and ant is leading the
37:49
Speaker 1: team and assist and only one point five turnovers a
37:55
Speaker 1: game compared to five point eight eight assist. Randall had
37:59
Speaker 1: that turnover heavy game early right as we know, he
38:06
Speaker 1: had seven of them in that first game. Only he
38:11
Speaker 1: had three in the next three games. So he made
38:13
Speaker 1: a nice jump there, no doubt, you know, he he's
38:18
Speaker 1: been playing great. Randall's been what Randall has needed. We
38:22
Speaker 1: need from Randall, you know, and he's just been solid
38:28
Speaker 1: man and defensively. You know. Jayden's been playing great. We'll
38:32
Speaker 1: talk about him in a second, but you know, as
38:35
Speaker 1: the number two guy going in not a great not
38:39
Speaker 1: a huge sample size, but not a great track record
38:42
Speaker 1: in the playoffs if you look at.
38:44
Speaker 2: His shooting percentage and all that for Randall.
38:48
Speaker 1: But he's fawned his groove here and he's it's four games,
38:52
Speaker 1: but forty five point five from three. He's got in
38:55
Speaker 1: the line six times a game as well, shooting forty
38:59
Speaker 1: seven point six from the field. And he's had to
39:05
Speaker 1: lock up with Luca. I'm sorry, well Luke look at too,
39:08
Speaker 1: but Lebron pretty much a lot of the series so far,
39:13
Speaker 1: and he's done a really good, great job. He's able
39:17
Speaker 1: to be physical and when there's a mismatch on offense
39:21
Speaker 1: for him, he's able to be physical that way too.
39:24
Speaker 1: I thought he got falled out at least two drives
39:28
Speaker 1: and it didn't get called what are he gonna do?
39:31
Speaker 1: That could have been maybe three three out of four
39:34
Speaker 1: or something like that from the free throw line. But
39:37
Speaker 1: he's played great man and against Luca, yeah, he had that.
39:41
Speaker 1: You know, he shouldn't have followed them h you know,
39:45
Speaker 1: down the stretch in that game. But he's playing great defense.
39:49
Speaker 1: He's doing little things and he's he even says it
39:52
Speaker 1: like in the post pressure where he's like, you know,
39:55
Speaker 1: I was so wired to score and and now he's
40:01
Speaker 1: not having to be the number one score and sometimes
40:05
Speaker 1: he doesn't have to be the number two. He could
40:07
Speaker 1: be the third, fourth or fifth. You know. It's the
40:09
Speaker 1: other things he's doing now. And some of the rebounds
40:13
Speaker 1: he just comes in and swipes away him and Jaden
40:17
Speaker 1: it's been phenomenal man. So shots out to Randall, Golden
40:23
Speaker 1: Jayden though you know, having the those two have the
40:26
Speaker 1: hardest defensive assignments. Obviously Randall's or sorry McDaniel's almost I
40:32
Speaker 1: mean fifty seven point nine from the field. Oh, by
40:36
Speaker 1: the way, he's almost but three and a half attempts
40:39
Speaker 1: from three, he's shooting forty three percent. But he's been phenomenal, man,
40:46
Speaker 1: forty eight point right sixty two point eight from two,
40:50
Speaker 1: like in the way he snatches those rebounds seven point three.
40:57
Speaker 1: By the way, Ant is leading the team and assists
41:00
Speaker 1: and rebounds where he at rudy anyway, he's at six
41:05
Speaker 1: point three, he's third because McDaniels is evering seven almost
41:10
Speaker 1: twenty point seven boards. Man, it's been beautiful to watch,
41:15
Speaker 1: and we saw it when we had to lean into
41:19
Speaker 1: him from more scoring, you know, when Dante first went
41:24
Speaker 1: down and then Randall and we just needed him more
41:28
Speaker 1: and he stepped up. You know, he had a full month,
41:31
Speaker 1: month and a half where he was like seventeen eighteen
41:33
Speaker 1: points or something like that. Like he was playing great,
41:36
Speaker 1: and the beauty of it sounds funny, but the beauty
41:39
Speaker 1: of it, as we know, it had nothing.
41:41
Speaker 2: To do with a three point shot because it wasn't still,
41:43
Speaker 2: it wasn't falling still.
41:45
Speaker 1: But everything else was. His mid range game is cutting
41:48
Speaker 1: to the basket, just driving to.
41:50
Speaker 2: The basket, like.
41:52
Speaker 1: And he even says when they take out, they're one big.
41:58
Speaker 1: He's the tallest dude on the court, and he's even
42:02
Speaker 1: that big when they have money, he's probably the longest
42:04
Speaker 1: dude on the court. Again, maybe Rudy had them, but
42:07
Speaker 1: I mean, he's played phenomenal and even last night he
42:13
Speaker 1: still played really good. He had that thirty piece you know,
42:17
Speaker 1: the night before or the game before. It just it's crazy, man.
42:23
Speaker 1: And then when you look at that lineup that we've
42:26
Speaker 1: been talking about early in the season, you know, the
42:32
Speaker 1: the nas, the nas in Randall minutes were not good.
42:39
Speaker 1: It was really bad defensively, like really bad. But then
42:45
Speaker 1: when Randall came back, and remember Rudy got hurt a
42:47
Speaker 1: little bit when he missed like eight or ten games
42:49
Speaker 1: back spasm right before the break. Then it looked like
42:52
Speaker 1: he was okay, you heard his He had a little
42:54
Speaker 1: spasm right before the break ended, I think in their
42:58
Speaker 1: last practice, and so he missed like whatever eight nine
43:01
Speaker 1: games after that, and that's when they had to depend
43:05
Speaker 1: on Before Randall got back, they actually had NOAs and
43:09
Speaker 1: McDaniel's playing the five to four, and so McDaniels was
43:13
Speaker 1: going from a three to the four, and you know,
43:16
Speaker 1: he played four in the past. It's not something you
43:19
Speaker 1: necessarily want him to do all the time, of course,
43:21
Speaker 1: but you had to do what you had to do.
43:23
Speaker 1: But that lineup now, putting Dante in the mix two, like,
43:30
Speaker 1: it's a potent lineup, and you have three knockdown shooters,
43:35
Speaker 1: right obviously aunt Nas and Dante, although he's not knock
43:39
Speaker 1: him down, you know in this series, but just wait
43:43
Speaker 1: and then you know, McDaniels and Randal can shoot. They're
43:46
Speaker 1: not great three point shooters. They can get hot, though,
43:49
Speaker 1: but as long as they do their stuff from two
43:54
Speaker 1: point range and they're physical like they are, and they're
43:57
Speaker 1: rebounding like they are and all that, you know, that's fine.
44:02
Speaker 1: That's fine, you know, in what they bring. We know
44:05
Speaker 1: Jayden brings the defense. But I'm not gonna act like
44:09
Speaker 1: I watched all eighty two Knicks games for the five
44:12
Speaker 1: years Randall was there or something like that. But this
44:15
Speaker 1: is the most locked in as a Timrols. What is
44:19
Speaker 1: this like the nineties game? Well he missed games actually,
44:22
Speaker 1: but either way, like he is zoning the fuck in
44:25
Speaker 1: on defense in the small thing. So you know, and
44:30
Speaker 1: we'll see what happens, you know, we'll see if we
44:33
Speaker 1: extend them or what we do. But him and Jaden
44:37
Speaker 1: have been doing their thing. Nas. It's like Spurts. Beyond
44:41
Speaker 1: that crazy first game where he was six and nine, right,
44:44
Speaker 1: he's just going nuts the other three games. It's kind
44:47
Speaker 1: of like Spurty offense, you know. But a couple of
44:52
Speaker 1: really key buckets obviously the last two games, especially the
44:56
Speaker 1: last game he had eight a short amount of time,
44:59
Speaker 1: but you know, gritty mediocre. Other than that, we'll say,
45:03
Speaker 1: I do have to admit but and someone asked him,
45:08
Speaker 1: I think in this last night. I think in the
45:12
Speaker 1: post press are like you could kind of tell Minnesota
45:16
Speaker 1: fans that go way back, or not way back, but
45:18
Speaker 1: kind of back to like Brad Rakey, you'd always kind
45:21
Speaker 1: of know what he was gonna do as a pitcher.
45:23
Speaker 1: In the first two Dree innings. He's gonna either go
45:26
Speaker 1: six or seven or maybe even further if he's tight
45:30
Speaker 1: early and if he's given up a couple of dingers
45:32
Speaker 1: and he's probably gonna get, you know, knocked around the park. Well,
45:36
Speaker 1: it used to be that way with Randall or sorry
45:39
Speaker 1: with nos we got so much talent, I can't keep
45:42
Speaker 1: trying it.
45:43
Speaker 2: NOAs and sometimes and.
45:45
Speaker 1: They asked him like you're able to overcome that now
45:48
Speaker 1: and play good when we need you later too. A
45:52
Speaker 1: lot of times you'd kind of know what game you're
45:54
Speaker 1: getting out of Nas in the first half, first quarter
45:58
Speaker 1: or I guess you could say his first which is
46:00
Speaker 1: usually you know, first and second quarter, that time frame
46:04
Speaker 1: off the bench. But yeah, you would. You would like
46:06
Speaker 1: Ali is in his night, or he just get a
46:09
Speaker 1: bunch of dumb fouls, get too emotional on the court,
46:12
Speaker 1: not channel it, you know, And that's it's something that
46:17
Speaker 1: you can see is improving because he's shown it the
46:20
Speaker 1: last two games, so that that's huge. Dante, like I said,
46:26
Speaker 1: shooting woes even when it comes to layups, but he
46:30
Speaker 1: is still making contributions. And late in that game he
46:35
Speaker 1: sure did with that left he lay and one. So
46:39
Speaker 1: he's still doing his thing. Like I mentioned, aunt six
46:42
Speaker 1: turnovers in four games. Decision making is on a high
46:47
Speaker 1: level right now. He's plugged in Defensively, there was that
46:54
Speaker 1: there's that little tape that's out there on Twitter of
46:56
Speaker 1: him just running down Luca, you know, defensively, running through screens,
47:02
Speaker 1: going overscreens, sometimes under because he can make it up
47:05
Speaker 1: with the speed on Luca. But you know, one on one,
47:10
Speaker 1: it's really never in doubt as long as he's tuned
47:13
Speaker 1: in mentally when it comes to like off ball and
47:18
Speaker 1: team defense off ball on both sides of the ball,
47:21
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work there. But man, he's starting
47:24
Speaker 1: to put it together. And it's just the decision making
47:27
Speaker 1: the energy, giving credit right to his teammates. Like he's
47:32
Speaker 1: just becoming a leader in so many ways, right in
47:36
Speaker 1: front of her eyes. And you know, telling Randal he's
47:41
Speaker 1: got to shoot more than he does, doesn't have his
47:43
Speaker 1: productive game, but he I'd like that. Randal was like,
47:46
Speaker 1: that's true, but you know I did get the line
47:47
Speaker 1: ten times, dude. But yeah, and it's just like I said.
47:52
Speaker 2: These postseasons, dude, he just brings.
47:55
Speaker 1: It all together and he's taking another step, you know,
48:00
Speaker 1: in that direction, and it's it's phenomenal to see Man
48:03
Speaker 1: and Luca defensively and Reeves defensively just are not good
48:08
Speaker 1: players on defense, they're not. And Reeves I think offensively
48:14
Speaker 1: gets overrated, especially as a playmaker because look who's on
48:18
Speaker 1: his team. We were talking about this about a week ago,
48:22
Speaker 1: about a week ago.
48:25
Speaker 2: On a space that's you.
48:26
Speaker 1: Know, there's a debate going on about him and if
48:29
Speaker 1: he if he was on a different team, he'd be
48:32
Speaker 1: the he'd be their point guard. And a lot of
48:35
Speaker 1: us old heads, I'm the probably the oldest of the
48:37
Speaker 1: old heads on those spaces. But you know, we're all
48:42
Speaker 1: talking like that's just not true. Dude. He's a fine player,
48:45
Speaker 1: but he's you know, he's not great defensively, that's for
48:48
Speaker 1: damn sure, not even very good. And then you know
48:51
Speaker 1: he's pretty good, but he's just not. Like the point
48:54
Speaker 1: is two years ago, why in the fuck did they
48:57
Speaker 1: have to rely on D'Angelo Russell so much to be
49:00
Speaker 1: a playmaker if Reeves is the starting point guard someplace else,
49:05
Speaker 1: you know, and if you look at how that series
49:07
Speaker 1: went when they went to the conference finals, if you
49:11
Speaker 1: look at all that playoff stress, they kind of went
49:14
Speaker 1: how Russell played and they got to that conference final
49:17
Speaker 1: and his play fell the fuck off. And so back
49:22
Speaker 1: to that list, Lebron Luca than Aunt Randall, Rudy McDaniels,
49:28
Speaker 1: nas Conley, you know, right in the Conley Dante, like
49:34
Speaker 1: right in Alexander Walker, like Reeves is. That's where Reeves is.
49:38
Speaker 2: He's not higher. I mean, maybe this series is higher
49:42
Speaker 2: than Rudy.
49:42
Speaker 1: Okay, but go do your analytics on Rudy. You know,
49:47
Speaker 1: this whole getting dusted on, you know, on offense or
49:51
Speaker 1: you know, defensively by the by Luca or whatever. Go
49:55
Speaker 1: do the fucking numbers. Dude. It's just not happening, man,
49:58
Speaker 1: He's not. He doesn't all reiterate this. He doesn't get
50:01
Speaker 1: played off the court defensively, dude, he just doesn't. He
50:05
Speaker 1: just doesn't. But he does offensively at times he does.
50:11
Speaker 1: But last year, this year under Finch, you can go
50:17
Speaker 1: back to that Memphis series when DiAngelo wasn't playing good,
50:21
Speaker 1: they went with the j Mac too, because he brought
50:25
Speaker 1: a quicker pace and the quicker He wasn't trying to
50:29
Speaker 1: break down anybody. He's just moving the ball and getting
50:31
Speaker 1: the offense going quicker. There's spent times where towns will
50:35
Speaker 1: be in fall problems and TODs will come in and
50:38
Speaker 1: you'll they'll they'll run with nos for a while, they'll
50:40
Speaker 1: close with Dawson times. Sometimes they were closing with towns
50:43
Speaker 1: in nas and putting Rudy on the bench. So you know,
50:47
Speaker 1: he's not been afraid to do that whatsoever. And he's
50:50
Speaker 1: proven it. And I remember there's a little they had
50:53
Speaker 1: the camera on that it was last night they had that.
50:57
Speaker 1: I think it was last night. Yeah, they had the
50:59
Speaker 1: camera on on Rudy on the sidelines and some coach
51:03
Speaker 1: behind him, because you know, there's like seventeen coaches on
51:05
Speaker 1: the team now. Like he's like, you know, basically saying, Rudy,
51:12
Speaker 1: hey man, we still need you, dude. You play good
51:14
Speaker 1: to night, blah blah. You can kind of see it.
51:16
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm good, dude, We're good, you know. So,
51:19
Speaker 1: And when Nas came in and hit those buckets, he
51:22
Speaker 1: was like one of the first ones up to clap,
51:25
Speaker 1: to clap his hand, you know, to pass them a
51:28
Speaker 1: bag add or whatever. So we're a team, and I
51:33
Speaker 1: say we I am a part time media member, but
51:37
Speaker 1: I am a fan. It's coming together, though, This team
51:41
Speaker 1: is coming together. And we talked about how I think
51:44
Speaker 1: it's only four teams in the NBA playoffs, so a
51:48
Speaker 1: fourth right, only four teams the tim real start. One
51:53
Speaker 1: of them are top ten analytically offense and defensive rating,
51:59
Speaker 1: and the defense has been great for the most part. Yeah,
52:04
Speaker 1: we'd given up some points here and there in the course.
52:06
Speaker 1: First quarter, not so well. Fourth quarter, they're doing their
52:10
Speaker 1: fucking thing. You go look at that, all those analytic
52:13
Speaker 1: heads go, look at the fourth quarter. They are shutting
52:16
Speaker 1: them down. But before we start running. First of all,
52:20
Speaker 1: we're not done with this series, okay, but before we
52:23
Speaker 1: start running, Rudy out of town or Rudy is expendable,
52:28
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong.
52:29
Speaker 2: That new extension he has those three years.
52:32
Speaker 1: A lot more manageable, you know, a lot more tradeable
52:38
Speaker 1: now anyway, don't forget though. If Houston does end up
52:43
Speaker 1: winning that series, we're gonna need them, you know, we're
52:48
Speaker 1: gonna need him and and I don't know.
52:51
Speaker 2: What the future holds ship. Halfway through the year.
52:54
Speaker 1: I mean, you had people saying that they need to
52:56
Speaker 1: get ran, they need to get rid of Randal at
52:58
Speaker 1: the deadline period. This is after them saying, after seeing
53:03
Speaker 1: Townsend Rudy play in a season where Kat missed fifty
53:09
Speaker 1: three fucking games, they're already trying to read. But it's
53:11
Speaker 1: the video game generation. You just I don't like this season.
53:15
Speaker 1: I don't like this game. I'm turning the shit off.
53:17
Speaker 1: I'm resetting it. But a reset that I don't like this.
53:20
Speaker 2: That's not how it works in the real world.
53:22
Speaker 1: It just doesn't. It's not how it may work that
53:25
Speaker 1: way on Twitter, but it doesn't work in it. You
53:27
Speaker 1: gotta see it. You gotta see it, dude. And plus
53:32
Speaker 1: what I was saying by the trade deadline, dude, like
53:34
Speaker 1: you can always trade fucking Randall on Draft night if
53:38
Speaker 1: you want, or odds are if someone's gonna give him
53:41
Speaker 1: a deal, Dude, it'd be a sign and trade anyway.
53:45
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a decent chance to sign a trade
53:48
Speaker 1: unless he wants to go to some shit team and
53:51
Speaker 1: get the bag. But he's already gotten the bag, so
53:53
Speaker 1: I don't think. Whatever my point is, it's like, you know,
53:58
Speaker 1: don't go dragon. You know, Rudy too far. You know.
54:05
Speaker 1: I like that he got ten rebounds last night. I
54:10
Speaker 1: liked his game. He got two fouls. I thought one
54:13
Speaker 1: of them was bad in the first quarter of that
54:16
Speaker 1: thinking both these games, but in Game one, but I
54:19
Speaker 1: thought he played good. Though he's played good, he just offensively,
54:22
Speaker 1: just he's got a hold on the goddamn ball. He
54:26
Speaker 1: got a hole on the ball. So my thoughts on
54:31
Speaker 1: Game five. You know, last year, I didn't think they
54:38
Speaker 1: were gonna sweep the Suns even when it was three
54:41
Speaker 1: zip and that was a crazy game. Remember that game
54:44
Speaker 1: just just tight the whole time, phenomenal game, and then
54:49
Speaker 1: we had that crazy defensive rotation where each man rotated
54:53
Speaker 1: and then I think he was either Alexander Walker or
54:56
Speaker 1: Jaden that got in the lane, grabbed it, gave it
54:59
Speaker 1: to hand and saw that one they don't have a
55:01
Speaker 1: room protector, and two no one was in the goddamn lane.
55:04
Speaker 1: So he had that crazy dunk and the game is
55:07
Speaker 1: over basically. But I just I now believe that we
55:14
Speaker 1: can finish it off. But I don't think they're going to.
55:20
Speaker 1: Like I even after the game was done last night,
55:23
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, so we got game six at home.
55:26
Speaker 1: That was my mentality, But it was also my mentality
55:28
Speaker 1: that it was going to be two two going into
55:29
Speaker 1: game five. Maybe it's just a Minnesota sports thing in me,
55:34
Speaker 1: but also like I try to be a realist, you know,
55:37
Speaker 1: watched a lot of sports play to fair amount, Like
55:40
Speaker 1: I just try to stay even keeled, you know. So
55:44
Speaker 1: I think we will lose Game five, and I wouldn't
55:48
Speaker 1: doubt if there's not a clutch time thing. You know,
55:51
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be shocked if they beat us cleanly, and
55:55
Speaker 1: maybe we would do what we did theet you know,
55:58
Speaker 1: in Game two where it could have been eighty six
55:59
Speaker 1: eight with time to still go and maybe win that game.
56:03
Speaker 2: But I got a feeling that they're just gonna, They're.
56:08
Speaker 1: Just gonna, you know, they're just gonna win the game
56:11
Speaker 1: and then Game six. So I do think the Timberwolves
56:14
Speaker 1: to close out Game six at home. Now, it's a
56:17
Speaker 1: big ass to.
56:19
Speaker 2: Win three games at home, now, I gotta admit.
56:26
Speaker 1: And you know, with this group, with this core, we've
56:30
Speaker 1: only been in one Game seven, be fucking crazy game
56:33
Speaker 1: with Denver as you as you may remember, just maybe
56:38
Speaker 1: you might remember that big major comeback. So yeah, I'm
56:43
Speaker 1: gonna say they close out game six. So Friday night,
56:46
Speaker 1: it is lovely that we get these two days off.
56:50
Speaker 1: Lebron he needs it. Because that's another thing they played.
56:57
Speaker 1: They played that lineup, the whole lineup, not the you know,
57:03
Speaker 1: not their half as center, but they played that lineup
57:07
Speaker 1: with Finny. They've played that lineup the whole second half.
57:11
Speaker 1: That was crazy. And I guess JJ said, hey, dude,
57:14
Speaker 1: if you guys need if anyone needs a blow, let
57:16
Speaker 1: me know. But you could just see they all got
57:20
Speaker 1: real tired at the end of it. You know. Now,
57:23
Speaker 1: I will say this people say that's unheard of. It
57:26
Speaker 1: is unheard of. I think I don't know the statistics.
57:29
Speaker 1: I'm sure someone's done it, but that is very that's
57:32
Speaker 1: that's very desperate, I will say that. And it just
57:35
Speaker 1: shows you how the lack of depth that they have.
57:38
Speaker 1: But I still think you could give Fando and Vince
57:41
Speaker 1: Vincent two three minutes somewhere in there, four minutes, I mean,
57:45
Speaker 1: what the fuck, you know, especially when you had the lead,
57:48
Speaker 1: you know. So I thought that was kind of ridiculous,
57:53
Speaker 1: But I believe Ant did it. Aunt played the because
57:57
Speaker 1: we've seen players do it. Lebron's done it plenty. They
58:00
Speaker 1: play the whole damn near the whole game. We've seen that,
58:03
Speaker 1: but it's usually not a whole line up. These five
58:06
Speaker 1: players are just gonna play the time. And then so
58:10
Speaker 1: Aunt did it though on the second half. I believe he.
58:12
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I saw that he did. I'm pretty
58:15
Speaker 1: sure because even when he Paul Pierce didn't know that
58:19
Speaker 1: was that wasn't the first half.
58:24
Speaker 3: But also Julius almost did it. He played a lot
58:29
Speaker 3: of minutes in the second half. So, like I said,
58:31
Speaker 3: I think he got falled a couple of times. Going
58:33
Speaker 3: with the racks so he could have more points. But yeah,
58:38
Speaker 3: man close out game six Friday night.
58:42
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking. Wednesday night. Usually I I'm busy
58:47
Speaker 1: Wednesday night. Randomly this week it's tweaked. I got the
58:50
Speaker 1: night off. Although knock on wood, I'm three and zero
58:55
Speaker 1: when I work and they play, So I may just
59:02
Speaker 1: go volunteer or something, just work, do something. No, So
59:07
Speaker 1: that that's my story. I'm sticking to it. Hopefully, like
59:09
Speaker 1: I said, Aaron can join us on the next go round.
59:15
Speaker 2: We're gonna find out who wins Game four.
59:18
Speaker 1: Tonight with Golden State in Houston. You know, I did
59:23
Speaker 1: think that would go six for Golden State. I thought
59:27
Speaker 1: I had a chance to go seven actually at the
59:32
Speaker 1: beginning the series. But now once they won Game one,
59:34
Speaker 1: and now they've won that that crucial Game three, and
59:37
Speaker 1: they have Game five that they can win too, I
59:40
Speaker 1: don't know if they wouldn't that one either way. Is
59:44
Speaker 1: Jimmy back tonight. I don't think he is. I think
59:49
Speaker 1: they're gonna be. He's gonna get a little more time
59:50
Speaker 1: now that they won that. They won Game three, so
59:57
Speaker 1: it's got a chance, though, i'd say to to say
1:00:00
Speaker 1: and they are a day behind, but I think they
1:00:03
Speaker 1: catch up. Actually, let me check, let me check what
1:00:07
Speaker 1: the deal with that series time frame is, because we'd
1:00:12
Speaker 1: be Friday and Saturday. Correct I think we'd be Friday
1:00:16
Speaker 1: and Saturday. Or no, what am I saying? Friday and Sunday.
1:00:19
Speaker 1: That'd be fucked up. Remember that years ago they had that,
1:00:22
Speaker 1: They had the opening weekend playoffs. They had Saturday and
1:00:25
Speaker 1: Sunday back to backs. It's like, all right, dude, I
1:00:28
Speaker 1: think you're I think you're trying to outsmart yourself. But
1:00:30
Speaker 1: that's not good. No back to backs. Okay, So they
1:00:35
Speaker 1: play tonight, okay, so they catch up with us right
1:00:38
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. They play tonight, they played Wednesday as well.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: Then it's May second, May fourth, okay, okay, So so yeah,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: that's crazy. It'll be interesting to see. So you have
1:00:57
Speaker 1: a west coast and a central time, and you have
1:01:00
Speaker 1: a west coast and the central sign Houston's on Central time?
1:01:03
Speaker 1: Correct or is it to the right? Looking downwards at
1:01:09
Speaker 1: the map from up north here? Is that they are?
1:01:13
Speaker 1: They are right? They're not pretty sure anyway, so they'll
1:01:19
Speaker 1: they'll be lined up right with us. So obviously closing
1:01:23
Speaker 1: out in game six. I don't want to jinx it,
1:01:26
Speaker 1: but you know it's uh, you know, it would be
1:01:32
Speaker 1: pretty important. Uh well, obviously you want to close out
1:01:35
Speaker 1: game five, right, but I'm not gonna you know, I'm
1:01:40
Speaker 1: not gonna get too high and mighty. But if they do,
1:01:43
Speaker 1: holy shit, you know, talk about some more time off
1:01:46
Speaker 1: too and get ready for it. So yeah, because I
1:01:51
Speaker 1: do have a feeling that two and two series with
1:01:54
Speaker 1: the Clips and Denver with wild ending there, I think that, well,
1:02:00
Speaker 1: it's gotta go game six, but I'm pretty sure it'll
1:02:03
Speaker 1: go game seven. That's tough to say. But and I'm
1:02:08
Speaker 1: just trying to think they they they'll do a game one,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: but sometimes they'll do a game one then then give
1:02:14
Speaker 1: that team like two three days off just so the
1:02:17
Speaker 1: other series can catch up. So three out of the
1:02:20
Speaker 1: four could go game six, if not game seven, which
1:02:25
Speaker 1: we obviously know there is one one already done with
1:02:29
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City. So yeah, man, this team is really coming
1:02:35
Speaker 1: together at the right time. Shouts out to everyone. That
1:02:39
Speaker 1: place is going berserk. When I mean that place obviously,
1:02:43
Speaker 1: I mean Target Center. Probably be back Monday. You know,
1:02:51
Speaker 1: we'll see where we're at time wise, and sometimes life
1:02:55
Speaker 1: gets in the way. But yeah, enjoy Wednesday, and good
1:03:02
Speaker 1: luck to all US fans. Try not to freak out
1:03:06
Speaker 1: too much, and if they lose, don't freak out too much. Obviously,
1:03:10
Speaker 1: if it goes Game seven, we'll be freaking out. But anyway,
1:03:14
Speaker 1: enjoy the week, See you next week. P