Michael Grady with PA & Charch #92Noon!

Game 2 Gameday! Wolves TV vox Michael Grady is in studio with PA & Charch!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
There anywhere. I gotta turn thisdown. Shall we begin? Thank you?
Minneapolis Football Feast nine to noon.This is an old fashioned ass kicking

(00:27):
right here, and that's a fact. Good stuff. I mean, pick
your poison with that deepense you homeray come. This is nine to noon

(01:07):
and a Friday football Feast becomes aFriday power forward beast. It's BA in
charge, sinking days. Good stuff, we please on a Friday Beast.
Good morning. Paul Jarchian is theco host, and I'm Paul Allen nord

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No produces and in studio in carryoverlike fashion, Ernie Banks like Fashion playing
two for FM one hundred point three. K f A. M is the
Bally's television voice for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Michael Grady, how did it go?
You might want to start by lettingMichael know where the on button for

(01:49):
the mic is, because we justheard you play initials and I think there
might be a little bit of confusedabout how the microphone works. That's the
contract. Never I was ye,it was a sacrificial lamb. I know
I had no shot. This earlyin the morning. My brain is not
functioning in the right way. Itreally doesn't start to function. It's around

(02:10):
six seven pm. So no,no, that was that was That was
a lot of fun. That wasa lot of fun. And it's sneaky
hard. It is, No,it is sneaky hard. It is.
It's uh. I listened to acouple of games before and I said,
okay, yeah, no, thisis this is going to be brotal.
It's not going to be brotal.It feels from all twenty two audio.

(02:31):
Ya, Wow, the first timeI've ever heard that. That's great breaking
down. It's just how many cluesdoes it take? Average? The what's
the batting average of guesses in play, the analytics of it, all the
per bringing the per and PR intoinitials. It's tempting Michael to feel like

(02:52):
it's a litmus test for your intelligence, but it's not. It doesn't mean
at least I hope not because II've only ever won one time. It's
it is. It is legitimately toughand way harder to play in person when
you're when you're driving down the roadand you're listening to it and it's easy.
Yeah, that's right. When themic is on and the lights are

(03:13):
bright. The Initials game is tough. It is tough, great game but
it was fun. It was fun, and and it's it's great having you
here for many reasons. But youknow when when when I asked you to
join us yesterday, the first andforemost I was thinking and realizing that you
were in New Jersey when Kyrie Irvingwas there. So yeah, yeah,

(03:35):
she was me and Brooklyn right.But but Irving, you know, with
his nets debut. I had forgottenthis until I looked it up. His
nets debut mat he went for fiftypoints in a loss to the Timberwolves in
twenty nineteen. So Kyrie Irving withthe Brooklyn Nets, it probably was the
worst time of his career. Youknow, he gets Rookie of the Year
with the Calves, he wins achampionship with the Calves. The Brooklyn days

(03:59):
were strange and what we saw theother night was otherworldly and good morning.
Just Kyrie Irving, man, whatwas it like to be around him and
like watch him up closest he was? He was good to me. I
had a really good relationship with KyrieIrving. COVID nineteen just completely derailed that
that squad and what they were buildingwith his you know, refusal get vaccinated

(04:23):
in that whole thing. So,but watching him on a day in and
day out basis in practice or ingames, and to see his wizardry out
there on the basketball court. He'struly one of the special players in this
game. And unique that at six' two he rarely gets his shot blocked.

(04:44):
And not only is he so skilledand and and he's always been like
that with the Rookie of the Yearand then eventually a champ champ with with
the Calves. But you've seen himplay in Dallas with Luca now for a
while and it's abundantly clear. Correctme if I'm wrong, Man, you're
You're closer to it than me.But he and Luca are agenda free.
And it doesn't you know, likewhen when you were in Brooklyn, Man,

(05:06):
it was KD. It was Durant, James Harden, Kyrie Irving.
You know, to get those toget groups like that together and get them
to be agenda free like Luca andKyrie last year and part of this year.
You know, from what I readhere from those I respect, they
weren't necessarily agenda free they are now, right, Yeah, Well, I
mean in Brooklyn it was it wasagenda free. He had a great relationship

(05:28):
with Kevin Durant. Again, itwas just stuff out off the court that
completely derailed that squad. He playedwell with Lebron James, just in his
own mind, felt like, I'mnot going to get the credit that I
deserve if I'm continuing to be inthe shadow of Lebron James. And in
hindsight he realized that that was thatwas faulty logic. So yeah, we
suffered through that with stuff on Marburyhere twenty years ago, no question,

(05:48):
And I think Marbury ultimately regretted thattoo, yes, And so he's he's
he's a little more wise now.And then also when you're playing with the
guy who put up seventy three pointsin the NBA game, you know,
it's like, you know what,I don't really have to do heavy lifting
here. This guy is special also, so he is very comfortable trading off

(06:11):
in the moment with Luka Dancic.And it's quite the one too combo,
right, God, is it reallyis? It's you know, it's it's
a very tough matchup. They wereboth very successful in game one. What
did you feel like was the storyof the game in Game one? Being
there in Denver and watching the intensityand the effort and the execution from the

(06:34):
Timberwolves when they were down twenty earlyin that third quarter, and battling all
the way back and watching the energyfor Denver dissipate while the energy for the
Timberwolves rose, and everything about thatexperience at Ballerina is about forcing and eighty

(06:54):
feet above sea level in your faceand how this is going to mess with
your head and you're gonna get tired. You're gonna get tired. But it
was the timp Wolves that got stronger, and it was the Nuggets that got
weaker and more tired. And sogoing from that game into our game one,
I'm thinking, Okay, we're youknow, better condition, energy,
intensity, all that's going to bethere. We understand the moment. But

(07:15):
to see Ant as tired as I'veseen him in a very long time,
and to see the Wolves having aninability to sustain momentum, I understand this
the Western Conference Finals and Dallas isgreat, but I've just seen the Wolves
like overwhelming opponent with long stretches andit was just little spurts and Dallas just
kind of hung around, hung around, hung around. I just felt like

(07:38):
that was a big difference. Ithink if the energy is different, the
execution is different. We see moreefficient games from Ant and Kat and if
you couple that with role players alsohaving a strong game. You know,
Jaden's been playing well, Kyle cameup the bench, played well. Hopefully
Nikhil can knock down a few moreshots. Nasried, it's just going to
make a completely different ballgame. Let'sreverse five days for a second, because

(08:01):
like when the Timberwolves bounce the champs, you know, we're watching the celebration
on the court and everything, andhere I see you, you know,
run right on to start to executeyour toil or congratulate people or whatever.
What was that Like? What wasit like being right next to that game
seven victory? It was I mean, it was surreal. Because I've said
this before. Everybody on this Timberwolvesquad, whether we're talking about a player,

(08:26):
someone on the coaching staff, someoneon the training staff, whatever it
may be, they have a storyand everybody individually wants this for a different
reason. Yeah, And it isa daunting task to take down the defending
champs. And it is a dauntingtask to go into a defending champs house
in a Game seven and pull outa victory, add to the fact that
you were down twenty it was justand then to battle all the way back

(08:50):
and to rip their heart out oftheir chest and to have that celebration,
have that moment with so many Timberwolvesfans in the building there in Denver is
a moment that I, person andLee will never forget. And I don't
know that anything will really top thatoutside of a championship for me personally.
And sometimes it's a moment before achampionship that you remember for a long time.

(09:11):
When I was in Indiana, theColts beat the Patriots coming back from
a deficit in the AFC Championship game, that was just as powerful, if
not more powerful to me than beatingthe Bears in the Super Bowl a couple
of weeks later. Wow. Sothis was a really special, really special
moment for so many different people,and to see the joy of so many
different people's faces was again something thatI'll again, the job's not done,

(09:35):
but that was a special moment.So did you parlay that AFC title win
to Miami and that rainy Sunday nightand Prince Rogers, God Rest his soul,
the greatest halftime show ever? Didyou go it was I did not
go. I was I was instudio in the radio studio pushing buttons,
and I was the border operator locallyfor the Super Bowl, so I was

(09:58):
watching it on a screen and thenmaking sure that the commercials played on radio
for the Super Bowl. With BobBlamey on the call. At Denver Game
seven on TV, it sounded likeevery time the Nuggets scored, it sounded
like a Nuggets home game. Whenthe Wolves scored, it sounded like a
Wolve's home game. It was crazy, Yes, it was. You rarely

(10:18):
get kind of a college basketball Finalfour type of experience. Great analogy.
You know where you're hearing both crowd, both both fan bases get into it.
And there were stretches where the Nuggetswent on a roll when they went
up twenty, where they were completelydrowning out the Wolves fans. But once
Minnesota went on that run and theWolves fans started to get into it.
I've referenced it multiple times now.There was a Timberwleves fan to my left

(10:39):
who had a Nasri towel who wasgetting cooked when the Nuggets were up twenty,
but as the Timbules mounted to comeback, I mean, I mean,
he was going bananas and so shotshout out to shout out to that guy,
but everybody who the entire fan base. It was special for for so

(11:00):
many different people. But yeah,I'll never forget that feeling being in the
building and seeing that comeback and seeingthem just completely take the heart out of
the defending champions. It is reallyspecial. So you can imagine coming off
that high and then now you haveto reset in a series against the team
that has a completely different style withtwo dynamite players in the back court.

(11:22):
There's an adjustment period, and Gameone kind of felt like round one of
a prize fight, where you're kindof feeling out your opponent before you find
your rhythm. Michael, you mentionedfatigue that's set in clearly in game one.
My worry is it's game one.We're already fatigued, and there's no
extended breaks in this cadence. It'severy other day for the rest of this

(11:43):
series. So what is your I'mconcerned, what is your level of concern
just because of the competitive nature ofthis team, given what we've seen all
season long, I'm not concerned andthese are got especially what they're back against
the wall perform at a very highlevel that said, you still can't take
Dallas for granted, Luca is stillgoing to be Luca. Kyrie is still

(12:05):
going to be Kyrie. But inthe same way that that that we talk
about it maybe affecting the Timbleves,it's going to affect you know, the
Dallas Mavericks as well. You know, Luka Donci's not getting extra day's rest
on that knee, in that ankleand having to play other every other day
is going to impact him as thisseries continues to go along. So both
teams have to deal with it.Now. The team is going to make

(12:26):
any excuses, but I just thinkthe competitive nature of the Timbleves is going
to is going to shine through inthis game. They have so many different
advantages that they didn't really exploit inthat game. One that they had a
very long film session yesterday and kindof open their eyes to things that they
need to to lock in on.And I believe that they'll do that tonight.
And you know, some of thecomments specifically from a head coach bench

(12:48):
after the game, yeah, Ithought were really interesting because the game was
just watching it, listening to it, or stylistically it was so different from
things we've seen this postseason. Whatwe're shooting forty nine threes, what they're
missing, Like we've made twelve morethrees and we're gonna lose. And defensively,

(13:09):
the the on ball perimeter, switchingin everything and handling the picks.
You know, it was like i'dsay, seventy five percent of that Denver
game except for the twenty five percentwhen Denver started missing in the third quarter
early fourth and like a tidal wave, that whole thing switched. But the
defense had a lot to do withit. So, like you know,
we were we replayed Finch's press conferenceyesterday and he immediately got into the end

(13:31):
of game offense and unorganized and justab and C and he just went and
I was like, yeah, butI mean it's the defense for me,
specifically in the first half did notlook like, you know, what we
are used to seeing in super bigsituations. And while recognizing off that nugget
series and human nature getting to wintoo, you know, I understand that,
and I respect it, and youknow, actually, you know,

(13:52):
for sure agree that it played intothe loss. But the forty nine threes,
I just couldn't believe what I wassaying. Yeah, like the forty
nine threes. What do you thinkpart of it is takeing what the defense
has given you, and a lotof them they were good looks. But
when fatigue sets in, you're goingto see a lot of settling at jobs,

(14:13):
a lot of settling, and wesaw that as the game continued on.
It takes you're exerting energy by attackingthe defense and getting downhill and getting
to the rim, and to fireaway or three sometimes is just taking the
easier way out. So yeah,so I expect to see a different attack.
They're not going to turn down goodlooks. They're not going to turn

(14:33):
down good looks. But I don'tI do believe there will be more of
a concerted effort to use their sizeand strength advantage that they do have over
Dallas, and I wanna ge Dallascredit since they made the trade and brought
in PJ. Washington and Danny Gaffort. They're a completely different defensive squad,
right, so you can't take themlightly. Defensively, Luca was even getting

(14:54):
after it in Game one. Defensively, he made a big play to break
up a lot pass to Rudy goBear. He was defending well on the
perimeter at times. Kyrie Irving haslong been a vastly underrated defender in this
league, so he can't take themlightly. That said, will still have
a size and strength advantage and shouldbe able to get more looks at the
rim than what they got in Gameone. Blue Rall's joining us to finals.

(15:20):
Music and sports will be handled atabout nine to thirty five. Charch
Michael Grady TV Box Wolves. Oh, never fine. Talking about those threes,
Towns Connolly and Nikiel took almost halfof the forty nine threes they combined
for three makes. It's not gonnawork. That's not gonna work. It's
not gonna work. And we've andwe've counted it on and we've seen Conley

(15:43):
and we're not worried knockdown big threesthroughout the posts, throughout the regular season,
throughout the postseason. Yeah, Conley'sgonna be fine. Would love to
see nik Kiel get cooking on right. Yes, I believe he might be
one for thirteen the last last twoball games. And you'd really like to
see Nikiel get it going. Heexerts so much energy and effort on the

(16:04):
defensive side of the ball, andit's one of the reasons that you know
you have to play him and Ilove watching him, who because he has
amnesian You know, so many guyslet misshots affect how they battle on the
other end of the floor, andthat's not the case with Nikkeiel. So
I really would love to see thatget rewarded and see him knock down shots
again and find a rhythm because hejust gives everybody juice. I'll give you

(16:26):
a little Nikil data for you.He was a forty four percent shooter in
the regular season from UH and hewas finding against the Suns, but from
the Denver series forward thirty three percent, just twenty nine percent on his threes,
six and a half points per game, zero steals in the eight games
since the Denver series started. Andhe's a better defender than that is.

(16:48):
Niquill is a better defender than thatone. Get that. Here's another one
for nik Kiel. One offensive reboundin those eight games. That's it for
nik Kiel. A lot of struggles, it is, it is, And
again, I just want to seethe shots. I really just want to
see the shots, because he's doinga lot of things to be a nuisance
out there defensively, even if thesteels aren't aren't showing up. He does

(17:12):
a lot of things to be anuisance and and and showing hands and harassing
ball handlers, but that that shotneeds to go down. He needs to
find that rhythm again. And there'san ebb and flow and right now he's
in a valley right now, andwe need to see we need we want
to see that go up. Itjust creates a big boost for the team
when he's coming off the bench andhitting shots. One last thing on Nikiel.

(17:33):
At the end of this last game, when ant is clearly fatigued,
I was starting to ask myself,as hard as it is to take Anthony
Edwards off the floor at the endof a game, do we need to
bring in Nikiel just to give andyou know, sixty seconds of breather And
then I was like, oh,but Nikiel's ice cold too, you know,

(17:53):
so no, yeah, I inthe in the West, in the
Western Conference Finals, Anthony Edwards isgoing to have to ask to be pulled
out of the game. He's goingto say, yeah, it's but you
have to find ways to get himrest within the flow of the game.
Also, you definitely have to sithim down at times, but even on

(18:18):
the floor, again, Luca isnot going to guard, you know,
Anthony, He's not going to exertenergy guarding Anthony Edwards. They're going to
find the easiest matchup for finger quote, easiest matchup or a guy that Luca
can rest on so that he canhave his energy on the other end of
the floor. And as dynamic adefender as Anthony Edwards is, you may
have to pick your spots on whenyou want him to guard either a Kyrie

(18:41):
or a Luka Doncer, so hehas energy because you really are gonna need
his scoring punch. Any any reasonto believe Jaden McDaniel's scoring regresses badly anytime
soon. I mean like I'm talkingfor nine down and seven points or something.
Yeah, I mean we've seen thatduring the regular season. He'll have
a hot game, then I havea couple games or maybe five points,

(19:02):
you know, eight points, whateverit may be. He is shooting so
confidently right now that I just wantto continue to knock on wood and just
hope that it continues, because froma Dallas perspective, they're waiting for him
to you know, go back toyou know, regress to the me right.
So from the Timbers perspective, youhope he keeps it up because if
Ant has an Ant game, Cathas a Cat game and Jaden continues his

(19:23):
hot shooting, what can Dallas reallydo? Right? So I hate that
a strong Jaden game was wasted.But if he continues to shoot well and
Ant gets back on track with hisefficiency, and same thing with Karl Anthony
Towns, that's a big problem forthe match. But it's been three consecutive

(19:44):
for Jaden. They're two and onein those games, you know, where
he's scoring over twenty and he's hittingthrees at a high percentage. And the
confidence part, like you said,I mean, it's just so apparent,
even from afar where he's more confidentpump faking than the key and taking a
little dribble, a little passes inthe is comp it's just all coming together.
Yes because of his three point shooting. Yes, Yes, And so

(20:04):
again fingers crossed, whatever superstition youwant to use, you just wanted to
continue because he can knock down acouple of those a game. It's just
huge. And I go back tothat game six where there was all the
pressure was on Minnesota to try toforce a game seven against the Nuggets and
you're down nine to two early andeverybody in the crowd is going uh oh.

(20:26):
And Jaden had already missed a threeor in an earlier sequence, and
then he gets a corner look ata three, knocks it down. Go
on the other end, Edwards getsa steal bucket and then and then they
just steamrolled from there. And soso McDaniels is going to get good looks
and he's got to be able toknock him down. And thankfully he's been

(20:47):
doing it the last three ball games. All right, a couple more for
the box starts and the corners hisspot. I mean, Jaden loves that
corner spot. I'm surprised that opposingdefenses haven't done more to take that corner
away because he he still gets openlooks from that corner. He makes that
shot. Yeah, it's pick yourpoison with the defense because Edwards is so
good at slashing and cutting to therim and it is going to draw attention.

(21:08):
You really can't leave towns and soit's kind of pick your poison.
You're gonna have to leave someone open. You can't leave Conley open. And
then go bears the one setting screensand rim rolling. So McDaniels is the
one that they're daring to shoot,and he talks about it a lot.
I mean, opposing teams are kindof disrespectful and if they're going to be
disrespectful, then you have to makethem pay. And he's been making them
pay lately. And as that improveswith Jada McDaniels, this offense is going

(21:34):
to be so dynamic. So sothe expectation this evening, at least for
me, is that the on ballperimeter defense is tighter. It's just tighter
than it was Game one, youknow where with the drop coverage is such
an en vogue term right now,and it's actually a defensive scheme that's easy
to define if you watch it becauseyou can see the pick. You can
see one guy go one place,one guy go the other. And the

(21:56):
Wolves are so effective with it.You know when her when when in mixing
up coverages, so to speak.But there was just so much confusion in
game one where the guy head intothe basket was left free and there's nobody
there or my man Luker whomever hewas. So there was confusion and indecisiveness,
which is antithetical to the way thisteam plays defense, so I'm absolutely

(22:18):
expecting a lot of that to betight in this evening. What about Anthony
getting off tonight, what about Anthonyhaving a big immortality type game and that
that with a a button down defenseties the series of one. He's got
to get downhill, gotta get downhill, draw fouls, lebod. He just
got excited. He's gotta be He'sgot He's just has to be his uh

(22:45):
normal aggressive self and he has toanswer the call, you know. He
he he made the statement about wantingto guard or my assignment will be guarding
Kyrie or after games. That apiece of trash talking, you know that
everybody ran with for two days,completally stupid and ridiculous. Any sort of
thodder that people can grab their okand grab their hands on, people are
going to jump on it. AndKyrie said he used at his motivation,

(23:07):
and so being the competitor that heis, will have to follow up.
And I expect nothing less. He'sjust one of those just one of those
rare athletes that supremely talented and hasa chip on his shoulder to go out
there and prove that he's the bestplayer on the basketball court. So I
expect to see that tonight. RudyGobert one thing that I one thing that

(23:29):
I think he struggled on from theDenver series forward. He's had either just
one or two offensive rebounds in sevenof those eight games from the Denver series
forward. And as impactful as hehas been in large stretches, I think
for Rudy the bars will higher onoffensive rebounding and I think that's a spot
where we could use more than oneor two per game. Yeah, and

(23:52):
he another thing that he does reallywell that you'd like to see tonight is
because you will not get credit forthe tap out. If there's a miss
and then you smack the ball outto the perimeter, you don't get credit
for that as far as an offensiverebound. But those are those are just
little things that that type of activityto just keep get another possession, fresh

(24:12):
fourteen, get another look at therim. These are all the little things
that you would like to see.I think to a man, everybody would
say that wasn't my best performance,you know, I mean outside of a
Jaden McDaniel. So even toward theend of the game, have had some
plays that he would like to haveback. I think a lot of guys
would say I was a step slowhere, step slow there. I can
tighten this up. I can tightenthat up. And if everybody looks in

(24:33):
the mirror and cleans that up,they're going to be just fine. Including
Rudy Gobert. Two words, MichaelGrady, fucks. Thank you for having
I appreciate it, and I shouldbe fun tonight. Michael Grady TV Box
for the Minnesota Timberwalls PA in chargeof Feasting on a Friday in order to
produce us and Kevin Lynch from ValleySports. Ark joins us in studio at
eleven o'clock. But right now ona rather gloomy and blustery Friday, of

(25:00):
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