Jason Timpf reacts to Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns, and the Minnesota Timberwolves' stunning 98-90 Game 7 win to knock out Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and the Denver Nuggets from the NBA Playoffs. Jason discusses how Minnesota pulled off their amazing comeback, and the two major flaws that doomed the Nuggets. #volume
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You're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody, O ball if
you guys are having a great start to your week. Well,
that game last night I thought was the biggest NBA
game since Game four of the twenty twenty two NBA
Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors,
when you really factor in the stakes and how it
felt like the eventual champion was kind of tilting on
that game potentially in a big way. I think Boston
(02:37):
is on a similar level to those two teams, but
it just felt like a monumentally important moment in NBA history.
So as a basketball fan, I want to kind of
dive a little bit deeper into it than I was
able to last night. So what we're going to do today,
I'm going to talk a little bit about what I
noticed rewatching the game. We're going to talk a little
bit about some of the fallout for both teams, talk
(02:58):
a little bit about Jokic and the big picture after
what happened last night, and then I have thirty nine
clips to go over all the stuff that I found
in my film session. Obviously, it's a little bit of
overkill considering the series is over, but as a basketball fan,
I can't help myself. So we're gonna dive a lot
deeper into that Denver Minnesota series, kind of like an
autopsy of everything that took place over the last couple
(03:20):
of weeks. You guys know the Joe before we get started.
Subscribe to a Brandy YouTube channel so you don't miss
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throughout the rest of the postseason and the last but
not least, before we get started, I want to talk
to you guys about game time. We have two rounds
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minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the story of the game. You know, if you
guys remember I was talking with the nerds when we
(05:04):
did our breakdown after Game six, I talked about how
specifically in Game seven, Minnesota needed to try to take
a sledgehammer to Denver's foundation. Now that's a kind of
like a metaphor, right, But the reason why I kind
of like saw it that way is if you look
at this series, when Denver was very methodical and played
(05:27):
Denver nugget basketball like we know this team is capable of,
they were able to find the cracks in Minnesota's defense
and score effectively. And we saw that for extensive stretches, right,
not just in those three games Game three, four and
Fivenesa when Denver dominated Minnesota, but also in Game seven,
even in the process of them going up fifty eight
(05:47):
to thirty eight, they had excellent offensive execution. They did
what they did more or less in the middle third
of the series, right, But in that third quarter stretch,
Minnesota was able to crack Denver's foundation. And the way
that that kind of manifested. Was a lot of mistakes,
a lot of stuff that doesn't look like Denver nugget basketball.
(06:08):
Right like Jamal Murray got ripped at half court twice,
right like Jokic fell apart defensively and on the glass,
he gave up a He was really bad defensive rebounding
down the stretch of this game. They were missing box
outs as a team, like crazy Michael Porter Junior got
bullied by nas Reed out of the right corner once
on a crash. Their defensive rotations weren't as sharp, their
(06:30):
rim protection was really poor. A lot of stuff that
we saw Denver do well early in this or in
the middle of the series, I should say, was the
exact opposite of what we saw from Denver. And that's
the thing, Like, that's I've said this before, but like
the credit, the biggest credit you can pay a defense
is when a defense actually manages to shake the identity
(06:51):
of who they're playing, meaning like they start to make
uncharacteristic mistakes and behaviors That to me, is the hallmark
of a defense that causes you to lose your composure.
Is another level of defense than what we typically see
around the NBA. Right and that was the story of
the series in my opinion. When Denver stayed sharp, they
(07:11):
could weather the storm. But multiple occasions in the series,
Minnesota was able to shake their foundation. They made their
decision making crater, they made them miss shots, they made
them turn the basketball over, they made them make defensive mistakes,
they couldn't rebound, They didn't look like the Nuggets. And
so that is the biggest credit that I could pay
to Minnesota. On the Minnesota front, I thought Ant was
(07:32):
mostly awesome in the second half of this game. Going
back to look at the film, his double teams generated
countless advantage situations as a matter of fact, and Ant
said this after the game. He was like, they kept
trapping me even though I wasn't playing well. And if
there's a bit of criticism to throw at Mike Malone,
there's Ant was having a bad night and so throwing
(07:54):
all the now the double teams played a role in that,
but it might have been worthwhile if you looked at
the fact that Minnesota got their offense going in the
second half in large part off of those double teams,
it might have been worth trying something differently, something different
to see if Ants kind of like cold spell would
have continued. That said, I'm not sure if it would
have made much of a difference. If you don't double Aunt,
(08:14):
maybe Ant gets going in a different way down the
stretch of that game. But I thought the double teams
and him getting rid of the basketball in a timely
fashion generated a lot of open looks. So you guys are
going to see in the film everything I'm talking about,
all the stuff I just said about Denver's mistakes, all
the stuff I just said about the shot creation from Aunt.
I have thirty nine clips we're going to go through.
I want to kind of demonstrate it all as much
(08:35):
as I can through film. But in addition to that,
Aunt started to find ways to generate rim pressure, splitting
pick and roll, so like when Yokich would come up high,
it's split that gap between the two guys between the
screener and Yokic and get downhill. Just finding ways to
generate rim pressure by any means necessary. It's had some
kickouts for three point shooters that were impressive. Guys were
(08:56):
crashing behind his rim pressure to get offensive rebounds. And then, honestly,
like you know, I was really curious to go back
and look at the film about this specifically because after
the game, Ant was talking a lot of trash about
what he did to Jamal. Murray specifically said, on his
way back to the locker room, I put him in handcuffs,
and I went back to look at the film and
he did. It won't show up in the box score
(09:17):
because Jamal had, you know, thirty four to thirty five
points or whatever. But from the moment that Denver was
up twenty to the moment that the Minnesota was up
by five, So in that twenty five point swing, Jamal
Murray did not score a single point. It was a
lot of really good ball pressure, top locking, denying, a
(09:39):
lot of funneling. That's the main thing you guys are
gonna see on film, and staying attached to Jamal over
screens which forced Jamal to drive into help and not
be able to find any openings. It also allowed Karl
Anthony Towns to kind of stay home on Jokic on
the roll. It was unbelievable defensively in the second half
of this game, and he really did put Jamal in handcuffs.
(10:02):
I see now, having gone back to look at the
film more closely, why he felt like, Hey, I had
a shitty offensive night for the most part. But I
can impact the game in other ways, and I did
that by removing Jamal from the game during the run.
And that's absolutely what he did, honestly, Like you could
actually see Jamal go pretty passive for stretches because he
(10:23):
wasn't shaking free from ant. There was a lot of
two man game with Michael Porter Junior and casep and
Aaron Gordon as they went to look other directions instead
of going through Jamal because Jamal just wasn't getting anything.
He had a couple of field goals, a floater and
a pull up jumper in the late portion of the
game after Minnesota had already taken control, but it was
too late at that point. Honestly, like for especially for
(10:44):
a twenty two year old, it was just an incredibly
impressive turnaround to be having a disastrous game. What was
he won for nine at one point and that ninth
shot was an airball that missed to the left of
the rim by like a foot. He was having an
absolute disaster of a game, and through sheer force of
defensive will power and rim pressure and absorbing those double
(11:05):
teams and making plays, he just found a way to
impact winning in the second half of that game. Honestly,
Like it was an incredibly impressive moment for a young player.
And honestly, if you zoom out from the series, he
averaged what twenty nine six and six on sixty two
percent true shooting with the like he was incredible over
(11:26):
to steels and blocks per game combined. Like he was
a major factor in the series. He had some bad
defensive moments early in the series with Jamal Murray, but
down the stretch of the series Game six and Game seven,
he did his job and played him into some disastrous stretches.
I thought it was incredible. He deserves a ton of
credit for what he did for his team last night.
(11:48):
Karl Anthony Towns going back to look at the film
was amazing. His defense on Jokis was a revelation. Yoks
tried to shoot over him in the post three times
in the second half run in all three of them
were tough fade away jumpers over his right shoulder. He
flattened out his post ups, avoided the bully ball, and
made him make over the top shots. And Jokic just
(12:09):
did not have as good of a season as a
jump shooter, which we're gonna get to in more detailed
here in a minute. But also Kat just did an
amazing job generating rim pressure he had. He drove right
by Jokic to score twice in the second half, just
like straight up man to man one on one against Jokic,
went right around him once he drew a foul, once
he got a driving layup. He drove right by Christian
(12:31):
Brown for a layup. He spun off of KCP and
drove drew a foul on the baseline. He was a big,
like secondary offensive creation force over the course of this game.
And again, like a lot of times, like we're gonna
talk about this more in a minute, but like heavy
as the head that wears the crown, like the superstar,
the guy at the top of the head of the
stake gets all of the aggressive defensive coverages. ANT was seeing,
(12:53):
the double teams, ANT was seeing the the traps and
the high drops and all that stuff. Kat had favorable matchups,
so it was imperative for him to take advantage of that,
and he did. And so again like Carl Anthony Towns's
biggest you know, the biggest rub on him is his inconsistency.
But like he has shown up in a lot of
big ways in this playoff run, and we have to
(13:14):
tip the cap. This is a guy that I've been
very critical of. This is a guy that seemingly the
entire NBA fan base has been very critical of over
the years. But he just made a lot of big
plays in a really big game last night. So tip
of the cap to Karl Anthony Towns. Nas Reed. He
got two buckets off of the advantage situations. There's a
transition cross match where they pushed the ball off the floor.
(13:35):
Jamal Murray ended up on nas Reed and he quickly
hit a little lefty hook on him and then he drove.
He drove a Jamal Murray close out off of one
of those ant double teams at the top of the
key and got a lay up on the right side
of the basket. But honestly, I thought him attacking the
offensive glass was his biggest impact, especially down the stretch
of the game. He just kept coming flying in off
(13:55):
the wings. When the shot went up, he had the
tip dunk. And he also drew a foul on a
play where at missed a layup, but Michael Porter Junior
was guarding nos Reed in the right corner and Nasried
came in and just bullied MPJ just shoved him off
and got the offensive rebound and went back up and
drew a foul on Cacp Like he was just a
monster athletically, a huge part of that wave after wave
(14:19):
type of approach that Minnesota brings to the table. And
then Jade McDaniels, obviously, he was awesome defensively, forced Aaron
Gordon into a big turnover during the run, hit a
few huge corner threes on kickouts from Anthony Edwards, and
then had a big driving floater on Jamal Murray in
that fourth quarter run. The Wolves played a nearly perfect
half of basketball, and when you kind of zoom out
(14:41):
on this series, they were the better team because they
were able to conquer their weaknesses and reach their ceiling
more frequently than Denver did. They This is a team
that I think has some pretty glaring weaknesses and they
all just came to fruition. Like Jada McDaniels is a
really inconsistent offensive player. He was massive in this game.
(15:03):
Karl Anthony Town's kind of an inconsistent secondary star. He
was massive in this game. Rudy Gobert hell the first
half he was so bad in that first half and
he was amazing in the fourth quarter of this game.
Anthony Edwards confronted a lot of his demons in that
game and overcame them down the stretch. Like every Timberwolf
looked themselves in the mirror, looked at their flaws and said,
(15:27):
screw that or winning tonight. And they did it. So
tip of the cap to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Anthony Edwards
talked about this earlier, but there's a reality to what
the superstar burden is. Like you are the head of
the stake, you are the head of the game plan.
Michael Malone after Game six talked about how, like he
(15:49):
specifically said, Anthony Edwards is unguardable and so we have
no choice but to guard him the way that they've
been guarding it, which is double teams on every iso,
traps on every pick and roll. They had to do that,
and like that's the thing, Like you have to look
at the bigger picture. This is why box score watching
is so frustrating. It's like, yeah, he had a rough
shooting night, but down the stretch of this game and
(16:11):
you guys will see on film, Anthony Edwards consistently drawing
double teams was a huge factor in his team generating
quality shots. In addition to that, he generated a lot
of rim pressure in that second half. And that's the thing, is,
like the superstar burden is, everything is about slowing you
down and you have to find a way somehow to
impact winning and I thought Ant did in a big way.
(16:34):
These games tend to be ugly, Like you don't win
ninety eight to ninety playing beautiful basketball. It tends to
be ugly, and Ant found a way to make plays
ugly last night. And again, he's twenty two years old.
This is he's twenty two years old, and he's passing
major tests in his first extended playoff run. I just
(16:56):
can't say enough about how impressed I am with Anthony Edwards.
I legitimately think he might be my best, my favorite
player in the league now, Like I can't help but
root for the guy. I think he's so good for
the league. I think he's obviously the guy that has
a chance to rescue American basketball from what looked like
at a pretty down era in terms of quality American
(17:17):
basketball players coming out of our high school and college system.
Like he's just the league needs him and I just
I continue to be incredibly impressed by him on the
Denver front. If I had to kind of a you
don't want to overthink it, right because you're up by
twenty in the second half with a chance to go
to the Western Conference Finals. So like, I don't like
(17:40):
the idea of pretending like the Nuggets scene to make
some sort of massive tweak. In addition, I think they
probably beat everyone else in the league this year. I
would have picked him over Boston, I would have picked
him over Dallas. I would have picked him over anybody
else in the league except for I picked him over
Minnesota and I ended up being wrong. But Minnesota proved
the ability to beat Denver. I'm not sure any other
(18:00):
team could have. So I don't think it's worth like,
you know, like I saw a lot of stuff about
like trading Michael Porter Junior and all these like really
aggressive type of moves. I would keep the core five.
I don't think that's the issue. I think that there
were two flaws that kind of reared their ugly head
in this postseason run. First of all, in their starting lineup.
If there's one weakness, it's the fact that they don't
(18:23):
generate a ton of dribble penetration in order to generate
rim pressure, which, by the way, rim pressure is like
a prerequisite to winning the NBA title. You need to
find a way to pressure the rim somehow, and Denver
does it through interior size and interior passing. What that
means is is like it's Jokic bullying his way to
the basket and then bringing a second defender over and
(18:44):
making plays out of it. It's Aaron Gordon cleaning up
stuff on the back line. It's even in ball screens,
it's Jokic catching on the short roll with his little
floaters and pop shots and attacking off of the catch there. Right,
Like they are an interior scoring team that is fueled
by size and passing ability on their frontline. Right. That
(19:05):
is a different type of rim pressure than beating people
off the dribble in straight line drive situations. And one
of the issues was Minnesota's frontline was so damn big
with Nasriy Karl, Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert that they
were able to mitigate a lot of Denver's bully bull
And so when they were able to kind of mitigate that,
(19:25):
it shined a light on the fact that Denver's perimeter
players are not guys that can generate dribble penetration. Jamal
Murray kind of needs a screen, right to get He
can hit over the top shots, but he needs a
screen to get into the paint, right like KCP, you know,
at this phase of his career, not like this crazy
(19:46):
athletic slasher that it used to be. And obviously he
doesn't dribble the ball well enough to kind of initiate
offense that way. I think KCP brings some rim pressure,
but it's just a different kind, right like Aaron Gordon,
same kind of thing, Like he can attack with an advantage,
but there's not a lot of like he can break
you down off the dribble and make a ton of
stuff happen against an elite defense. And Michael Porter Junior
(20:07):
is obviously a catch and shoot threat. So like, I
think that's the one big kind of like weakness that
Minnesota exposed is if you can match up with their size,
they can't dribble past you, right, That was kind of
the one big thing. The second piece is I do
think fatigue played a big role. You guys are gonna
see on the film, and there's no excuse because everyone's fatigue.
Everyone's tired, and in a close game late you just
(20:29):
got to find a way. You got to dig deep,
and you got to find a way, and Denver did
not in this game. But fatigue played a role, and
that's where their lack of depth came to the to
the forefront. They had the same lack of depth last
year and they conquered it. They had the same lack
of dribble penetration last year, although Bruce Brown I thought
brought a good amount of that you know, kind of
downhill force last year, and you know, not having Bruce
(20:52):
Brown this year certainly ended up playing a role at
the end of the day. But the lack of depth
ended up showing up this year in teague at the
end of games. And so they probably do need to
try to add some depth in a little more firepower,
specifically with athleticism this summer. They probably need to have
an option that they can go to, like a sixth
(21:13):
starter kind of thing where against matchups where they need
to get more downhill force, they can put somebody in
for a KCP or in for a Michael Porter junior
that brings that downhill force and like again, that's gonna
be the tricky piece this summer, bringing in some depth,
bringing in some athleticism, just to bolster your options when
(21:34):
you get into these types of environments. But don't overthink it. Again.
You were twenty points up with a shot to go
to the Western Conference finals. And I do think Denver
like Denver is still in my opinion, every bit as
good as the teams at the top of the league.
They just caught a bad matchup and they caught a
young star on the rise and they ended up ended
up losing. But again, the rest of the league's going
(21:55):
to be improving. Oklahoma City is only going to get better. Memphis, Like,
think about Memphis next year. Not only you have John
Morant coming back, You've got Desmond Baine, who keeps improving.
He's an awesome backcourt partner for John Morant. Gigi Jackson
is like forward that they found that that can shoot
the hell out of the basketball, big strong, can defend.
And then you've got Brandon Clark and Jared Jackson like
they they are gonna be a problem next year too.
(22:17):
Anthony Edwards like he's twenty two years old, Like, imagine
how good that kid's gonna be when he's twenty four
to twenty five. So like, again, Denver needs to do
a little bit more than they did last offseason to
try to bolster and improve their margin for error, which
ended up being too small this season on the jokicch front. Again,
this is something that this particular topic is something that
(22:40):
matters a lot to me as a basketball fan, but
also one that I get really frustrated about when I
look out at like kind of the way that most
NBA fans behave. For instance, like Lebron fans today are
like going out behaving like they won a fifth championship
with the way they've been talking about jokicen the Nuggets,
and like, I hate that. It's all narrative base. It's
all fool to me. I'm a big believer in like
(23:03):
two different lists. There's the who's the best player in
the world in a vacuum kind of list, like a
ranking of players based like purely in a vacuum, Like
if we were starting a season tomorrow and everyone was
in like a draft and you had the first pick,
who would you pick for one season to lead your team?
There's like that ranking, and then there's like the bragging
(23:25):
rights ranking. And this is this is like the list
that I go through every summer where it's more of
just like a how do we recognize the players based
on their achievements in the last year? Perfect example that
is Luka Dancic. I think I thought coming into the
season Luca was a top four player, but I ranked
him at tenth because he missed the playoffs and played
like shit down the stretch of the season. So it
was like, in terms of in a vacuum, he's in
(23:46):
the top five, right, But in this other list where
it's like based on bragging rights and accomplishments, like he's
considerably lower. Right. So there are these two different ways
of looking at it, right, So how do we how
do we, you know, kind of digest what just happened
with Nikola Jokic within the realm of that list, because
coming into this season, Jokich was a clear number one
on both He was the clear and a vacuum guy,
(24:09):
and he was the clear bragging rights guy, right, But
he just lost in the second round. And not only that,
Anthony Edwards kind of played him to a draw in
that series, Like if you look back at the numbers,
Anthony Edwards twenty eight points, five rebounds, six assists, fifty
percent from the field, thirty seven percent from three to
eighty five percent from the line. He had some bad
defensive moments, but he also had some really good defensive moments,
(24:31):
particularly at the end of the series. Jokic twenty nine points,
eleven rebounds, eight assists, fifty two percent from the field,
twenty three percent from three, eighty nine percent from the line,
And he had some good and bad defensive stretches as well. Right, Like,
he was really good defensively in the middle of the series,
really bad on the outside portions of the series. So
like Anton Nikole Yokich kind of played each other to
(24:52):
a draw. You were the favorite with home court advantage,
and you lost. So we got to find a way
how to digest that, right I see? You know, I
came into the season thinking that Jokic was substantially better
than everybody. I've seen two major areas of slippage with
Jokic though. First his defense. Last year in the postseason,
(25:13):
Jokics played the best defense of his career. He was
locked in every single night. He had some trouble with
some specific matchups, like the team that had the highest
offensive rating against Denver was the Lakers. I think it
was like a one to sixteen if I remember correctly,
And a big part of that was the Lebron and
Ad problem and the way that their downhill force combined
with interior passing. It's kind of like a it's like
(25:34):
a combination of of what Denver does offensively and what
Minnesota does offensively right, and they cause a lot of
problems for Denver in their back line defensively, But for
the most part, Jokic was awesome in that postseason run
at Denver's defense was awesome, and they weren't threatened throughout
this year outside of Games three, four, and five against Minnesota.
(25:56):
Jokic was bad. He was bad defensively against the Lake,
and he was bad defensively for the most part against Minnesota.
And so that's that's an area of slippitche And again,
like when you're talking about Jokic ranked with the other
players in the league, that's him coming down a level
and coming closer to the pack. The second piece of
it the jump shooting. I talked about this all season
(26:17):
and I kept shining a big flashlight on it, and I
was like, Yokic's awesome, But this is weird. Let's keep
an eye on this well. Last year in the regular season,
Jokic got one point one seven points per jump shot.
Last year in the playoffs, he got one point two
to one points per jump shot. He shot awesome all
year long, day one of training camp through to when
(26:39):
he hoisted the trophy. That was a huge part of
what made Yokic so dominant this year. He was down
about sixteen percent from the previous season. He got one
point zero one points per jump shot in the regular season,
in the playoffs zero point eight seven points per jump shot.
(27:00):
Thing that I noticed in this series in particular, there's
a reason why he took ten threes last night. Karl
Anthony Towns was showing quickly on Jamal but always quickly
recovering back to Jokic on his roles. So Jokic when
he would roll into the lane was constantly getting swarmed.
So one of the ways Jokic countered that was by popping,
(27:22):
because when he popped, Kat couldn't get back out to
him that fast, and so he found some openings at
the top of the key, but then he couldn't make them.
And you guys are gonna see on the film I'll
show you some examples of kat like running back to
the role in Yokic kind of popping free at the
top of the key, Like he took those threes because
that was what the coverage was allowing and he just
(27:43):
simply could not make them. He made two of them
late in the game, but he was two for ten
overall in the game and for the playoffs. What did
I say earlier, twenty three percent? Like that was a
major issue. So I still think in a vacuum that
Jokic is the best player in the world. And if
I do two lists this summer and we have a
vacuum list and a bragging rights list, I'm probably gonna
(28:05):
have Yokic number one in that vacuum list in the
sense that if I was starting a season tomorrow, I
would draft him number one, like to to run my
team for an entire season for one season, right, But
he has slipped as a defender and as a jumpshooter,
and it has brought him closer to the pack. And
as far as the bragging rights go, you lost in
(28:28):
the second round with home court advantage with the twenty
point lead in Game seven, like you, he lost bragging
rights for a year. Now we'll see because I think
some like I don't think you just give it to anybody.
I think someone has to earn it. But there are
some guys that have some that have a chance in
the next month to snatch those bragging rights. I think
Tatum has a case. I think Anthony Edwards has a case,
(28:48):
and I think Luka Doncic has a case. And again
I wouldn't. You guys know how I feel about Tatum.
I really like him as a player, but I don't
think he I don't think i'd ever take him number
one in a vacuum. But if he dominates everybody to
hoist the trophy, he gets bragging rights for the next year.
Same goes for same goes for Luca. So again, the
way I look at it, he did vacate the top
(29:09):
spot on the bragging rights list, but he still has
the top spot in a vacuum. However, his lead in
a vacuum is shrinking, and it's shrinking because he is
slipping in a couple of key major areas, his defense
and his jump shooting. Really it was just oppressive defense
in rim pressure and transition. The other way, the double
teams from Anthony Edwards and all of that rattling Denver's
(29:32):
foundation and making them play a very uncharacteristic basketball game.
And so tip of the captain Minnesota. They deserve to
go to the conference finals. Denver's got to look in
the mirror a little bit and address some things this offseason,
especially as it pertains to their depth. I agree with
a lot of the optimism that I heard from some
specific Nuggets. After the game, Jamal Murray said, We're back
to being the hunter. Love to hear it. You're right,
(29:54):
there's human nature makes it hard to repeat, right Like.
It's like Mike Malone said before the season, it takes
talent to win a championship. It takes character to repeat,
and Denver failed that test this year, but they do
have the talent to go win it next year. They
are hungry. Mike Malone referred to the Spurs and talked
about how we're not done and it just because you
don't repeat doesn't mean you can't be a dynasty. Love
(30:14):
the attitude Denver will be back. You're you're an idiot
if you think Denver's done, Like, They're gonna find a
way to be back in the mix year after year
after year. Jokic didn't win three MVPs because he has
just some sort of massive media support. He also is,
in a vacuum, the best basketball player in the world,
(30:35):
even with the warts that he showed in this season.
So I think Denver's gonna be back. They got punched
in the mouth this year, they got humbled a little bit.
They're gonna be back next year. They're gonna make some noise.
I think it'd be foolish to write them off. All right, guys,
that is all I have for today. I'm gonna be
right back on in a little bit with a series
preview on Celtics Pacers. I will see you guys. Then
(31:19):
the volume
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(02:16):
You're at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody, O ball if
you guys are having a great start to your week. Well,
that game last night I thought was the biggest NBA
game since Game four of the twenty twenty two NBA
Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors,
when you really factor in the stakes and how it
felt like the eventual champion was kind of tilting on
that game potentially in a big way. I think Boston
(02:37):
is on a similar level to those two teams, but
it just felt like a monumentally important moment in NBA history.
So as a basketball fan, I want to kind of
dive a little bit deeper into it than I was
able to last night. So what we're going to do today,
I'm going to talk a little bit about what I
noticed rewatching the game. We're going to talk a little
bit about some of the fallout for both teams, talk
(02:58):
a little bit about Jokic and the big picture after
what happened last night, and then I have thirty nine
clips to go over all the stuff that I found
in my film session. Obviously, it's a little bit of
overkill considering the series is over, but as a basketball fan,
I can't help myself. So we're gonna dive a lot
deeper into that Denver Minnesota series, kind of like an
autopsy of everything that took place over the last couple
(03:20):
of weeks. You guys know the Joe before we get started.
Subscribe to a Brandy YouTube channel so you don't miss
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throughout the rest of the postseason and the last but
not least, before we get started, I want to talk
to you guys about game time. We have two rounds
(03:40):
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minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball.
So the story of the game. You know, if you
guys remember I was talking with the nerds when we
(05:04):
did our breakdown after Game six, I talked about how
specifically in Game seven, Minnesota needed to try to take
a sledgehammer to Denver's foundation. Now that's a kind of
like a metaphor, right, But the reason why I kind
of like saw it that way is if you look
at this series, when Denver was very methodical and played
(05:27):
Denver nugget basketball like we know this team is capable of,
they were able to find the cracks in Minnesota's defense
and score effectively. And we saw that for extensive stretches, right,
not just in those three games Game three, four and
Fivenesa when Denver dominated Minnesota, but also in Game seven,
even in the process of them going up fifty eight
(05:47):
to thirty eight, they had excellent offensive execution. They did
what they did more or less in the middle third
of the series, right, But in that third quarter stretch,
Minnesota was able to crack Denver's foundation. And the way
that that kind of manifested. Was a lot of mistakes,
a lot of stuff that doesn't look like Denver nugget basketball.
(06:08):
Right like Jamal Murray got ripped at half court twice,
right like Jokic fell apart defensively and on the glass,
he gave up a He was really bad defensive rebounding
down the stretch of this game. They were missing box
outs as a team, like crazy Michael Porter Junior got
bullied by nas Reed out of the right corner once
on a crash. Their defensive rotations weren't as sharp, their
(06:30):
rim protection was really poor. A lot of stuff that
we saw Denver do well early in this or in
the middle of the series, I should say, was the
exact opposite of what we saw from Denver. And that's
the thing, Like, that's I've said this before, but like
the credit, the biggest credit you can pay a defense
is when a defense actually manages to shake the identity
(06:51):
of who they're playing, meaning like they start to make
uncharacteristic mistakes and behaviors That to me, is the hallmark
of a defense that causes you to lose your composure.
Is another level of defense than what we typically see
around the NBA. Right and that was the story of
the series in my opinion. When Denver stayed sharp, they
(07:11):
could weather the storm. But multiple occasions in the series,
Minnesota was able to shake their foundation. They made their
decision making crater, they made them miss shots, they made
them turn the basketball over, they made them make defensive mistakes,
they couldn't rebound, They didn't look like the Nuggets. And
so that is the biggest credit that I could pay
to Minnesota. On the Minnesota front, I thought Ant was
(07:32):
mostly awesome in the second half of this game. Going
back to look at the film, his double teams generated
countless advantage situations as a matter of fact, and Ant
said this after the game. He was like, they kept
trapping me even though I wasn't playing well. And if
there's a bit of criticism to throw at Mike Malone,
there's Ant was having a bad night and so throwing
(07:54):
all the now the double teams played a role in that,
but it might have been worthwhile if you looked at
the fact that Minnesota got their offense going in the
second half in large part off of those double teams,
it might have been worth trying something differently, something different
to see if Ants kind of like cold spell would
have continued. That said, I'm not sure if it would
have made much of a difference. If you don't double Aunt,
(08:14):
maybe Ant gets going in a different way down the
stretch of that game. But I thought the double teams
and him getting rid of the basketball in a timely
fashion generated a lot of open looks. So you guys are
going to see in the film everything I'm talking about,
all the stuff I just said about Denver's mistakes, all
the stuff I just said about the shot creation from Aunt.
I have thirty nine clips we're going to go through.
I want to kind of demonstrate it all as much
(08:35):
as I can through film. But in addition to that,
Aunt started to find ways to generate rim pressure, splitting
pick and roll, so like when Yokich would come up high,
it's split that gap between the two guys between the
screener and Yokic and get downhill. Just finding ways to
generate rim pressure by any means necessary. It's had some
kickouts for three point shooters that were impressive. Guys were
(08:56):
crashing behind his rim pressure to get offensive rebounds. And then, honestly,
like you know, I was really curious to go back
and look at the film about this specifically because after
the game, Ant was talking a lot of trash about
what he did to Jamal. Murray specifically said, on his
way back to the locker room, I put him in handcuffs,
and I went back to look at the film and
he did. It won't show up in the box score
(09:17):
because Jamal had, you know, thirty four to thirty five
points or whatever. But from the moment that Denver was
up twenty to the moment that the Minnesota was up
by five, So in that twenty five point swing, Jamal
Murray did not score a single point. It was a
lot of really good ball pressure, top locking, denying, a
(09:39):
lot of funneling. That's the main thing you guys are
gonna see on film, and staying attached to Jamal over
screens which forced Jamal to drive into help and not
be able to find any openings. It also allowed Karl
Anthony Towns to kind of stay home on Jokic on
the roll. It was unbelievable defensively in the second half
of this game, and he really did put Jamal in handcuffs.
(10:02):
I see now, having gone back to look at the
film more closely, why he felt like, Hey, I had
a shitty offensive night for the most part. But I
can impact the game in other ways, and I did
that by removing Jamal from the game during the run.
And that's absolutely what he did, honestly, Like you could
actually see Jamal go pretty passive for stretches because he
(10:23):
wasn't shaking free from ant. There was a lot of
two man game with Michael Porter Junior and casep and
Aaron Gordon as they went to look other directions instead
of going through Jamal because Jamal just wasn't getting anything.
He had a couple of field goals, a floater and
a pull up jumper in the late portion of the
game after Minnesota had already taken control, but it was
too late at that point. Honestly, like for especially for
(10:44):
a twenty two year old, it was just an incredibly
impressive turnaround to be having a disastrous game. What was
he won for nine at one point and that ninth
shot was an airball that missed to the left of
the rim by like a foot. He was having an
absolute disaster of a game, and through sheer force of
defensive will power and rim pressure and absorbing those double
(11:05):
teams and making plays, he just found a way to
impact winning in the second half of that game. Honestly,
Like it was an incredibly impressive moment for a young player.
And honestly, if you zoom out from the series, he
averaged what twenty nine six and six on sixty two
percent true shooting with the like he was incredible over
(11:26):
to steels and blocks per game combined. Like he was
a major factor in the series. He had some bad
defensive moments early in the series with Jamal Murray, but
down the stretch of the series Game six and Game seven,
he did his job and played him into some disastrous stretches.
I thought it was incredible. He deserves a ton of
credit for what he did for his team last night.
(11:48):
Karl Anthony Towns going back to look at the film
was amazing. His defense on Jokis was a revelation. Yoks
tried to shoot over him in the post three times
in the second half run in all three of them
were tough fade away jumpers over his right shoulder. He
flattened out his post ups, avoided the bully ball, and
made him make over the top shots. And Jokic just
(12:09):
did not have as good of a season as a
jump shooter, which we're gonna get to in more detailed
here in a minute. But also Kat just did an
amazing job generating rim pressure he had. He drove right
by Jokic to score twice in the second half, just
like straight up man to man one on one against Jokic,
went right around him once he drew a foul, once
he got a driving layup. He drove right by Christian
(12:31):
Brown for a layup. He spun off of KCP and
drove drew a foul on the baseline. He was a big,
like secondary offensive creation force over the course of this game.
And again, like a lot of times, like we're gonna
talk about this more in a minute, but like heavy
as the head that wears the crown, like the superstar,
the guy at the top of the head of the
stake gets all of the aggressive defensive coverages. ANT was seeing,
(12:53):
the double teams, ANT was seeing the the traps and
the high drops and all that stuff. Kat had favorable matchups,
so it was imperative for him to take advantage of that,
and he did. And so again like Carl Anthony Towns's
biggest you know, the biggest rub on him is his inconsistency.
But like he has shown up in a lot of
big ways in this playoff run, and we have to
(13:14):
tip the cap. This is a guy that I've been
very critical of. This is a guy that seemingly the
entire NBA fan base has been very critical of over
the years. But he just made a lot of big
plays in a really big game last night. So tip
of the cap to Karl Anthony Towns. Nas Reed. He
got two buckets off of the advantage situations. There's a
transition cross match where they pushed the ball off the floor.
(13:35):
Jamal Murray ended up on nas Reed and he quickly
hit a little lefty hook on him and then he drove.
He drove a Jamal Murray close out off of one
of those ant double teams at the top of the
key and got a lay up on the right side
of the basket. But honestly, I thought him attacking the
offensive glass was his biggest impact, especially down the stretch
of the game. He just kept coming flying in off
(13:55):
the wings. When the shot went up, he had the
tip dunk. And he also drew a foul on a
play where at missed a layup, but Michael Porter Junior
was guarding nos Reed in the right corner and Nasried
came in and just bullied MPJ just shoved him off
and got the offensive rebound and went back up and
drew a foul on Cacp Like he was just a
monster athletically, a huge part of that wave after wave
(14:19):
type of approach that Minnesota brings to the table. And
then Jade McDaniels, obviously, he was awesome defensively, forced Aaron
Gordon into a big turnover during the run, hit a
few huge corner threes on kickouts from Anthony Edwards, and
then had a big driving floater on Jamal Murray in
that fourth quarter run. The Wolves played a nearly perfect
half of basketball, and when you kind of zoom out
(14:41):
on this series, they were the better team because they
were able to conquer their weaknesses and reach their ceiling
more frequently than Denver did. They This is a team
that I think has some pretty glaring weaknesses and they
all just came to fruition. Like Jada McDaniels is a
really inconsistent offensive player. He was massive in this game.
(15:03):
Karl Anthony Town's kind of an inconsistent secondary star. He
was massive in this game. Rudy Gobert hell the first
half he was so bad in that first half and
he was amazing in the fourth quarter of this game.
Anthony Edwards confronted a lot of his demons in that
game and overcame them down the stretch. Like every Timberwolf
looked themselves in the mirror, looked at their flaws and said,
(15:27):
screw that or winning tonight. And they did it. So
tip of the cap to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Anthony Edwards
talked about this earlier, but there's a reality to what
the superstar burden is. Like you are the head of
the stake, you are the head of the game plan.
Michael Malone after Game six talked about how, like he
(15:49):
specifically said, Anthony Edwards is unguardable and so we have
no choice but to guard him the way that they've
been guarding it, which is double teams on every iso,
traps on every pick and roll. They had to do that,
and like that's the thing, Like you have to look
at the bigger picture. This is why box score watching
is so frustrating. It's like, yeah, he had a rough
shooting night, but down the stretch of this game and
(16:11):
you guys will see on film, Anthony Edwards consistently drawing
double teams was a huge factor in his team generating
quality shots. In addition to that, he generated a lot
of rim pressure in that second half. And that's the thing, is,
like the superstar burden is, everything is about slowing you
down and you have to find a way somehow to
impact winning and I thought Ant did in a big way.
(16:34):
These games tend to be ugly, Like you don't win
ninety eight to ninety playing beautiful basketball. It tends to
be ugly, and Ant found a way to make plays
ugly last night. And again, he's twenty two years old.
This is he's twenty two years old, and he's passing
major tests in his first extended playoff run. I just
(16:56):
can't say enough about how impressed I am with Anthony Edwards.
I legitimately think he might be my best, my favorite
player in the league now, Like I can't help but
root for the guy. I think he's so good for
the league. I think he's obviously the guy that has
a chance to rescue American basketball from what looked like
at a pretty down era in terms of quality American
(17:17):
basketball players coming out of our high school and college system.
Like he's just the league needs him and I just
I continue to be incredibly impressed by him on the
Denver front. If I had to kind of a you
don't want to overthink it, right because you're up by
twenty in the second half with a chance to go
to the Western Conference Finals. So like, I don't like
(17:40):
the idea of pretending like the Nuggets scene to make
some sort of massive tweak. In addition, I think they
probably beat everyone else in the league this year. I
would have picked him over Boston, I would have picked
him over Dallas. I would have picked him over anybody
else in the league except for I picked him over
Minnesota and I ended up being wrong. But Minnesota proved
the ability to beat Denver. I'm not sure any other
(18:00):
team could have. So I don't think it's worth like,
you know, like I saw a lot of stuff about
like trading Michael Porter Junior and all these like really
aggressive type of moves. I would keep the core five.
I don't think that's the issue. I think that there
were two flaws that kind of reared their ugly head
in this postseason run. First of all, in their starting lineup.
If there's one weakness, it's the fact that they don't
(18:23):
generate a ton of dribble penetration in order to generate
rim pressure, which, by the way, rim pressure is like
a prerequisite to winning the NBA title. You need to
find a way to pressure the rim somehow, and Denver
does it through interior size and interior passing. What that
means is is like it's Jokic bullying his way to
the basket and then bringing a second defender over and
(18:44):
making plays out of it. It's Aaron Gordon cleaning up
stuff on the back line. It's even in ball screens,
it's Jokic catching on the short roll with his little
floaters and pop shots and attacking off of the catch there. Right,
Like they are an interior scoring team that is fueled
by size and passing ability on their frontline. Right. That
(19:05):
is a different type of rim pressure than beating people
off the dribble in straight line drive situations. And one
of the issues was Minnesota's frontline was so damn big
with Nasriy Karl, Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert that they
were able to mitigate a lot of Denver's bully bull
And so when they were able to kind of mitigate that,
(19:25):
it shined a light on the fact that Denver's perimeter
players are not guys that can generate dribble penetration. Jamal
Murray kind of needs a screen, right to get He
can hit over the top shots, but he needs a
screen to get into the paint, right like KCP, you know,
at this phase of his career, not like this crazy
(19:46):
athletic slasher that it used to be. And obviously he
doesn't dribble the ball well enough to kind of initiate
offense that way. I think KCP brings some rim pressure,
but it's just a different kind, right like Aaron Gordon,
same kind of thing, Like he can attack with an advantage,
but there's not a lot of like he can break
you down off the dribble and make a ton of
stuff happen against an elite defense. And Michael Porter Junior
(20:07):
is obviously a catch and shoot threat. So like, I
think that's the one big kind of like weakness that
Minnesota exposed is if you can match up with their size,
they can't dribble past you, right, That was kind of
the one big thing. The second piece is I do
think fatigue played a big role. You guys are gonna
see on the film, and there's no excuse because everyone's fatigue.
Everyone's tired, and in a close game late you just
(20:29):
got to find a way. You got to dig deep,
and you got to find a way, and Denver did
not in this game. But fatigue played a role, and
that's where their lack of depth came to the to
the forefront. They had the same lack of depth last
year and they conquered it. They had the same lack
of dribble penetration last year, although Bruce Brown I thought
brought a good amount of that you know, kind of
downhill force last year, and you know, not having Bruce
(20:52):
Brown this year certainly ended up playing a role at
the end of the day. But the lack of depth
ended up showing up this year in teague at the
end of games. And so they probably do need to
try to add some depth in a little more firepower,
specifically with athleticism this summer. They probably need to have
an option that they can go to, like a sixth
(21:13):
starter kind of thing where against matchups where they need
to get more downhill force, they can put somebody in
for a KCP or in for a Michael Porter junior
that brings that downhill force and like again, that's gonna
be the tricky piece this summer, bringing in some depth,
bringing in some athleticism, just to bolster your options when
(21:34):
you get into these types of environments. But don't overthink it. Again.
You were twenty points up with a shot to go
to the Western Conference finals. And I do think Denver
like Denver is still in my opinion, every bit as
good as the teams at the top of the league.
They just caught a bad matchup and they caught a
young star on the rise and they ended up ended
up losing. But again, the rest of the league's going
(21:55):
to be improving. Oklahoma City is only going to get better. Memphis, Like,
think about Memphis next year. Not only you have John
Morant coming back, You've got Desmond Baine, who keeps improving.
He's an awesome backcourt partner for John Morant. Gigi Jackson
is like forward that they found that that can shoot
the hell out of the basketball, big strong, can defend.
And then you've got Brandon Clark and Jared Jackson like
they they are gonna be a problem next year too.
(22:17):
Anthony Edwards like he's twenty two years old, Like, imagine
how good that kid's gonna be when he's twenty four
to twenty five. So like, again, Denver needs to do
a little bit more than they did last offseason to
try to bolster and improve their margin for error, which
ended up being too small this season on the jokicch front. Again,
this is something that this particular topic is something that
(22:40):
matters a lot to me as a basketball fan, but
also one that I get really frustrated about when I
look out at like kind of the way that most
NBA fans behave. For instance, like Lebron fans today are
like going out behaving like they won a fifth championship
with the way they've been talking about jokicen the Nuggets,
and like, I hate that. It's all narrative base. It's
all fool to me. I'm a big believer in like
(23:03):
two different lists. There's the who's the best player in
the world in a vacuum kind of list, like a
ranking of players based like purely in a vacuum, Like
if we were starting a season tomorrow and everyone was
in like a draft and you had the first pick,
who would you pick for one season to lead your team?
There's like that ranking, and then there's like the bragging
(23:25):
rights ranking. And this is this is like the list
that I go through every summer where it's more of
just like a how do we recognize the players based
on their achievements in the last year? Perfect example that
is Luka Dancic. I think I thought coming into the
season Luca was a top four player, but I ranked
him at tenth because he missed the playoffs and played
like shit down the stretch of the season. So it
was like, in terms of in a vacuum, he's in
(23:46):
the top five, right, But in this other list where
it's like based on bragging rights and accomplishments, like he's
considerably lower. Right. So there are these two different ways
of looking at it, right, So how do we how
do we, you know, kind of digest what just happened
with Nikola Jokic within the realm of that list, because
coming into this season, Jokich was a clear number one
on both He was the clear and a vacuum guy,
(24:09):
and he was the clear bragging rights guy, right, But
he just lost in the second round. And not only that,
Anthony Edwards kind of played him to a draw in
that series, Like if you look back at the numbers,
Anthony Edwards twenty eight points, five rebounds, six assists, fifty
percent from the field, thirty seven percent from three to
eighty five percent from the line. He had some bad
defensive moments, but he also had some really good defensive moments,
(24:31):
particularly at the end of the series. Jokic twenty nine points,
eleven rebounds, eight assists, fifty two percent from the field,
twenty three percent from three, eighty nine percent from the line,
And he had some good and bad defensive stretches as well. Right, Like,
he was really good defensively in the middle of the series,
really bad on the outside portions of the series. So
like Anton Nikole Yokich kind of played each other to
(24:52):
a draw. You were the favorite with home court advantage,
and you lost. So we got to find a way
how to digest that, right I see? You know, I
came into the season thinking that Jokic was substantially better
than everybody. I've seen two major areas of slippage with
Jokic though. First his defense. Last year in the postseason,
(25:13):
Jokics played the best defense of his career. He was
locked in every single night. He had some trouble with
some specific matchups, like the team that had the highest
offensive rating against Denver was the Lakers. I think it
was like a one to sixteen if I remember correctly,
And a big part of that was the Lebron and
Ad problem and the way that their downhill force combined
with interior passing. It's kind of like a it's like
(25:34):
a combination of of what Denver does offensively and what
Minnesota does offensively right, and they cause a lot of
problems for Denver in their back line defensively, But for
the most part, Jokic was awesome in that postseason run
at Denver's defense was awesome, and they weren't threatened throughout
this year outside of Games three, four, and five against Minnesota.
(25:56):
Jokic was bad. He was bad defensively against the Lake,
and he was bad defensively for the most part against Minnesota.
And so that's that's an area of slippitche And again,
like when you're talking about Jokic ranked with the other
players in the league, that's him coming down a level
and coming closer to the pack. The second piece of
it the jump shooting. I talked about this all season
(26:17):
and I kept shining a big flashlight on it, and I
was like, Yokic's awesome, But this is weird. Let's keep
an eye on this well. Last year in the regular season,
Jokic got one point one seven points per jump shot.
Last year in the playoffs, he got one point two
to one points per jump shot. He shot awesome all
year long, day one of training camp through to when
(26:39):
he hoisted the trophy. That was a huge part of
what made Yokic so dominant this year. He was down
about sixteen percent from the previous season. He got one
point zero one points per jump shot in the regular season,
in the playoffs zero point eight seven points per jump shot.
(27:00):
Thing that I noticed in this series in particular, there's
a reason why he took ten threes last night. Karl
Anthony Towns was showing quickly on Jamal but always quickly
recovering back to Jokic on his roles. So Jokic when
he would roll into the lane was constantly getting swarmed.
So one of the ways Jokic countered that was by popping,
(27:22):
because when he popped, Kat couldn't get back out to
him that fast, and so he found some openings at
the top of the key, but then he couldn't make them.
And you guys are gonna see on the film I'll
show you some examples of kat like running back to
the role in Yokic kind of popping free at the
top of the key, Like he took those threes because
that was what the coverage was allowing and he just
(27:43):
simply could not make them. He made two of them
late in the game, but he was two for ten
overall in the game and for the playoffs. What did
I say earlier, twenty three percent? Like that was a
major issue. So I still think in a vacuum that
Jokic is the best player in the world. And if
I do two lists this summer and we have a
vacuum list and a bragging rights list, I'm probably gonna
(28:05):
have Yokic number one in that vacuum list in the
sense that if I was starting a season tomorrow, I
would draft him number one, like to to run my
team for an entire season for one season, right, But
he has slipped as a defender and as a jumpshooter,
and it has brought him closer to the pack. And
as far as the bragging rights go, you lost in
(28:28):
the second round with home court advantage with the twenty
point lead in Game seven, like you, he lost bragging
rights for a year. Now we'll see because I think
some like I don't think you just give it to anybody.
I think someone has to earn it. But there are
some guys that have some that have a chance in
the next month to snatch those bragging rights. I think
Tatum has a case. I think Anthony Edwards has a case,
(28:48):
and I think Luka Doncic has a case. And again
I wouldn't. You guys know how I feel about Tatum.
I really like him as a player, but I don't
think he I don't think i'd ever take him number
one in a vacuum. But if he dominates everybody to
hoist the trophy, he gets bragging rights for the next year.
Same goes for same goes for Luca. So again, the
way I look at it, he did vacate the top
(29:09):
spot on the bragging rights list, but he still has
the top spot in a vacuum. However, his lead in
a vacuum is shrinking, and it's shrinking because he is
slipping in a couple of key major areas, his defense
and his jump shooting. Really it was just oppressive defense
in rim pressure and transition. The other way, the double
teams from Anthony Edwards and all of that rattling Denver's
(29:32):
foundation and making them play a very uncharacteristic basketball game.
And so tip of the captain Minnesota. They deserve to
go to the conference finals. Denver's got to look in
the mirror a little bit and address some things this offseason,
especially as it pertains to their depth. I agree with
a lot of the optimism that I heard from some
specific Nuggets. After the game, Jamal Murray said, We're back
to being the hunter. Love to hear it. You're right,
(29:54):
there's human nature makes it hard to repeat, right Like.
It's like Mike Malone said before the season, it takes
talent to win a championship. It takes character to repeat,
and Denver failed that test this year, but they do
have the talent to go win it next year. They
are hungry. Mike Malone referred to the Spurs and talked
about how we're not done and it just because you
don't repeat doesn't mean you can't be a dynasty. Love
(30:14):
the attitude Denver will be back. You're you're an idiot
if you think Denver's done, Like, They're gonna find a
way to be back in the mix year after year
after year. Jokic didn't win three MVPs because he has
just some sort of massive media support. He also is,
in a vacuum, the best basketball player in the world,
(30:35):
even with the warts that he showed in this season.
So I think Denver's gonna be back. They got punched
in the mouth this year, they got humbled a little bit.
They're gonna be back next year. They're gonna make some noise.
I think it'd be foolish to write them off. All right, guys,
that is all I have for today. I'm gonna be
right back on in a little bit with a series
preview on Celtics Pacers. I will see you guys. Then
(31:19):
the volume
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