Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy Leader - Bumper to Bumper 5/23/24 Hour One

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Say, mother, there's too manyof you. Brother, brother, there's

(00:30):
far too many love you that.I think. Anyone who puckers up their
lips and presses it against their bossesbuttocks and then smooches is an ask kiss.
I seem to be in at everythingexcept my work. I'm good at
my work. I confine myself tothat. All I want out of life

(00:52):
is thirty sive and of twenty ratDemand's enlarged my mind. He's a poet
Bowyer and in the classic sense,I'm a little man. I'm a little
man. He's he's a great man. Think of his colors. There's black
and here's white, and in betweenis mostly gray. That's us. Now.
Gray is a tough color because it'snot as simple as black and white,

(01:15):
and for the media certainly not asinteresting. But it's who we are.
Ma's let's go busy. Is you'renothing in this life that is worth

(01:53):
having? Comes Easy Leader and FanRadio Network. Sorry, k Fair and
k FA and that's k f Aand dot Com. Two minutes and ten
seconds past three Central daylight time,welcome you back. It is a Thursday

(02:13):
edition of the Bumper to Bumper Showon a I think pretty moist. It's
Thursday afternoon here in the Twin Citiesof Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Brett Blakemore,
Will you check our current due pointor humanity? See what we got?
It felt a little moist to me. For some people. This is
ideal weather. This is the usheringin. I think currently we're at seventy

(02:35):
I got us at seventy six degreestoday, I've got the due point at
forty six. Oh that's not thathorrible, isn't it all? I don't
think by due point standards. Iwouldn't mind swinging the clubs a little bit.
No, that's true. We knowthat about you. Brett Blakemore is
in that share today because Guards heisn't, although I think Guards he was
on earlier today Password. Did hewin or lose? I don't even know
I won? He did win?Yeah, so he advanced. He is

(02:58):
advanced, so good for him,bully for him? And who is his
partner? And they did they saya team? Or is this I don't
understand how the invitation will works?Is there a team? Team? The
whole way? Okay? Okay,they beat uh the Power Trips, Sauce
and Core? Did they really?Yeah? Considered it like on the board
an upset not so much. Well, people had their doubts about sauce.

(03:19):
I didn't. Yeah, well,Guard, he's had a pretty good a
couple of good uh password runs,hasn't he once or two? Twice?
One or twice? Didn't he justonce? He's one and he got job
by the officials. This is whatwhen he did win initials. You're right,
that's a good point. Uh.He is back for at least part
of the show tomorrow. When wewere back at the cage at Target Center

(03:43):
for game number two, Bradshawn BrianKafan text line is open six four six
eight six. For the moment,we may add, but for the moment,
we have only a single confirmed guestfor today's program, and I'm looking
forward to the visit Sam Mitchell,who has been joining us a lot,
and we appreciate the extra time frombecause he's got a lot of golf to
play, speaking of golf down Atlanta, Georgia Way, but he agreed to

(04:05):
chat with us this afternoon Central time, about ninety minutes from now four thirty
or so. As I mentioned,the text line is open has been rebooted
for your convenience at six four,six eighty six, and today my vow
is and it's a rarity. Wewill not only tell you at the top

(04:27):
of the show we're going to takecalls today, we will follow through with
that particular assertion before this program wrapsitself up tonight at six. We're out
at six tonight for Links Basketball.You know, are you familiar with the
I think one of if I'm rankinglike top ten quotes sports quotes in the

(04:49):
history of this market, there's aLinks related quote that I believe to this
day remains the best, the singlemost entertaining, remarkable, impossible to believe
sports quote. Do you know whatthat is? Are you familiar with that
story? I hope I will be. Okay, So, I don't remember

(05:11):
what year it was, but onceupon a time, the Minnesota Lynx joined
the WNBA, and even in thatinaugural season, you have preseason games.
I don't know how many of theyplayed. So in the first game,
in this case preseason game, firsttime they'd assembled on a court with officials,

(05:33):
okay, in an arena, theylost. I don't remember who they
lost to, but the quote afterthe game, and I cannot remember.
Dan Wennesota might be able to findthis. I'm not sure because I've looked
for it before and I can't findit. A member of the Minnesota Timberwolves
asked, you know, for okay, nope, well you know what happened?

(05:55):
You guys seem like you were strugglingwhat happened? And the basketball player,
the Links player, said, wejust didn't play Links basketball. How
good is that? Obviously no suchthing had been established yet, The Links
hadn't even played basketball yet. Butshe made it sound like, you know,
like you can hear somebody say,Golden State Warriors in their heyday,

(06:18):
we didn't play Warriors basketball, youknow, Steph Curry maybe saying that,
Draymond saying that after they'd established adynasty, the Links had just played for
the first time in history. AndI guess because athletes, and we're gonna
get to this, because there's adirect connection between here and the Wolves series

(06:40):
with the Mavericks. Athletes are programmedto issue almost robotic cliches after games,
right because sometimes they don't know whatto say, sometimes they don't want to
give you much. And that's oneof the cliched ones that is trotted off,
trot it off from time to time, usually as I said, though,

(07:01):
from players on teams where there's anestablished track record where you can say,
yeah, they didn't play Golden StateWarriors basketball, or they didn't play
Celtics basketball, or you could evensay this year, we didn't play Timberwolves
basketball. But that, to meis why it's one of the greatest quotes
in the history. For me,it's the best quote. First game,

(07:23):
nothing established, hadn't even reached aregular season game. What happened, We
just didn't play Links basketball. Howgood is that? You know, if
the Wolves would have won last night, you could have said that bring yass
would have been the You would haveheard it all the time. You would
have heard that a lot, There'sno question, and you still will,
especially if they can come back inGame two. I mentioned off the top

(07:44):
of the program that we are indeedyou are, nothing in this life that
is worth having comes easy. Ithink that applies. I think there were
people who were starting to think thatnot only the Wolves were going to advances
to the NBA Finals for the firsttime ever, but that it was going
to be a semi lark, thatit was going to come easy. And

(08:09):
part of that is you're coming offknocking out dethroning the one team in the
West. I think was viewed aswell, this is sort of the team.
If you eliminate that team, it'swide open for you. That's the
Denver Nuggets. While not really payinga lot of attention to what the Dallas
Mavericks had done to this point andhow they had played for the latter part

(08:31):
of the season, especially after thetrade deadline, I picked the Wolves to
win the series. I'm not goingto back away from that, but I
fully expected. My original pick wasWolves in five. But I think that
was part of the giddiness, Ireally do, and even maybe not paying
enough attention to what the Mavericks hadput together and that they were a very

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They weren't as soft and chewy ateam as they had been before. Not
I'm not going to call them agreat defensive team, but better defensive team
than they've been. And so byyesterday I was basically saying six or I
could even see this thing going sevengames. I still could. Nothing in

(09:13):
this life that is worth having comeseasy. And I know if your sports
fans say, well, no,I like it better if it's a sweep
and then another sweep. But Ithink ultimately like in life, it feels
a little bit better, maybe alittle more sustaining, a little more nurturing,
a little more nourishing. If thereare indeed some challenges along the way

(09:37):
that puts doubt in your head,makes you wonder if you can count on
any of It leaves you with somequestions about where you go from here.
What has to get better. I'llgive you an example. Well, if
I'm listing in short order, whattook place in game one, I think

(10:01):
pretty definitively needs to change over thecourse of this series for the Wolves to
do what I still believe they're verycapable of doing. I'll give you the
short version of the list now,and then we'll try to expand upon each
of these items with I hope alittle bit more detail. One, our

(10:26):
guy, Mike Conley, has toplay a lot better. Conley, I
think had his worst game of theplayoffs. He didn't shoot well, but
that's not the issue with Conley.What Conley generally provides is good decision making,
stability, and he's the guy whosort of keeps the offense on the
straight and narrow when necessary the endof the first half, and this isn't

(10:52):
directly his fault and in the lastminute or two of the game. This
offense was not on the straight andnarrow. You heard very direct comments from
the head coach, Chris Finch afterthe game. Conley was not himself yesterday,
and you could tell. I thinkalso, you know, by coincidence
he I think it was one forfour from the free throw line, which

(11:13):
is not particularly helpful. And thatgets to the item number two. Wolves
have to get to the three freethrow line more, especially if the Mavericks
continued to do what they clearly didin Game one, make it hard to
drive. It was challenging. That'swhat good interior defense is all about,

(11:33):
discouraging the other team from driving andscoring. But you can't stop driving.
You still have to find ways routesto the basket if nothing, even if
you can't make the basket, toget fouled. Rudy Gobert, I think
he had the most free throw attemptslast night for the Wolves. Six.

(11:54):
That's two more than Anthony Edwards andKarl Anthony Towns combined. Those are your
two main guys. They've got toget to the free throw line a little
bit more than that. You can'tfall in love with the three, even
if the Mavericks seem to be invitingit, and even if early it seemed
like they're all going in. SoI do think it creates you go down

(12:15):
that rabbit hole, you fall inlove with it, and it's almost like,
well, they're making it really hardto get inside. Hell, we've
been hitting threes. Let's just keepshooting threes. And that's The Wolves are
good three point shooting team. They'renot usually a volume three point shooting team.
Too many three pointers. They fellinto that habit, fell in love

(12:37):
with it, and I think iteven it discouraged the probing that, even
against a tough interior defense, hasto be a part of what you do.
The big two can't be this biga mismatch. Their big two,
of course, is comprised of Lucaand Kyrie. Our big two is prized

(13:00):
of Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns. When the two big twos are matched
up, it can't be sixty threeto thirty five in the box score points
can't. Now Again, they bothof their big twos hit. It took
a lot more shots. They hadmore volume shooting. But let's be clear
about something. In the first half, the best player on the floor by

(13:24):
far was Kyrie Irving. In thesecond half, the best player on the
floor by far was Luca. Sofor me, you can't let both of
them get off to the degrees thatthey did at various times in the game.
One yes, not two, notunless at least one of your guys

(13:46):
is scoring at a high higher levelthan they were last night. Finish wherever
you heard this before, Finish thefirst half and the game better offensively.
Now, because we've had very few, you know, close games, we
haven't had to pay all that muchattention to those issues, it seems,

(14:09):
but they reared their ugly heads lastnight for sure. I'm going to give
you some details on that if youmissed it that I think pretty much prove
how essential that is and why Finchywas so grouchy about it after the game
as well. Let's do this.Let's first though, Let's try to put
a grant in somebody's hand. Let'sdo it the Phantom big deck dot com.

(14:30):
I'm gonna give you that shot ata grand in your hand at their
National Cash contest. Head to cafandot comment as a keyword bank for this
hour. The keyword is bankkfan dotcom keyword bank. Well, I'll quickly
add here before the break, somebody'salready texted it. Picked it up on
the theme nicely. Forty nine threepoint attempts is crazy and that's not Wolves

(14:50):
Basketball. American Rogers and Data Rememberare bringing the least anticipated album tour to
the alleged Amphitheater. June sixth wasSpecial Guests, The Story so Far and
four years Strong. Tickets are onsale now, but for more and more
info, head over to Cafe dotcom. Give her a calendar. This

(15:13):
will shock you, but Draymond Greenbelieves that Minnesota should give Kyle Anderson more
minutes and perhaps bring Rudy Gobert offthe bench. It goes on and on
and on. For Draymon Green.There is no other player in the NBA
playoffs then, other than Rudy Gobert. It's remarkable. Okay, where did

(15:41):
we leave off? We got somegood texts have already come in Sam Mitchell
in about an hour and ten minutes, so I already I'll give ahead a
time I had to win. Iwas going to go with it. This
quote from so I can find whothis is from, Well, it's from

(16:04):
any number of reporters. In thiscase, it is Tim McMahon, a
quote that probably should make Wolves fansif their dabbers are down at all,
or they're a little bit whoa,it'd be tougher. And I thought,
is this in danger? Chris Finchon today's film session with his players the

(16:26):
Western Conference Finals started, not surethey got the memo. They got it
this afternoon. That's pretty dramatic,right there, isn't it nowhere? Mister
nice guy Finch. He's saying,come on, man, what are we
doing? What are we doing?We're one step away from the NBA Finals.
Sounds like the message was suitably sternthis afternoon, and it should be,

(16:49):
especially if you get to some ofthe offensive breakdowns in a game that
wanted to blowout one or two plays. And I know for a lot of
people that's the saving grace. I'velisted what five to six issues of things
that have to change. But itwasn't like the Wolves lost by seventeen points
a couple plays you could say hereor there. I thought it was a

(17:11):
really good game until it wasn't froma Wolf standpoint, and it wasn't the
last couple of minutes because of justa comedy of errors But let's go back
to the end of the first half. As I'm sure some of you already
have, Wolves are up sixty twofifty six. With the ball on the

(17:33):
last possession, they're gonna be ableto either score or run out the clock.
So you got a chance to goup eight or nine and go to
the locker room instead, and throughthe ball to Paduca, Kentucky turnover.
Kyrie drives to the basket, scoresfiled I believe by McDaniel's on that occasion,

(17:59):
hits the free throw. So nowit's three at the half, could
have been eight or nine. Let'sthink big and say we got a three,
that's all we were hitting in thefirst half. That's a six point
swing. That's in a game likethis which was close, can't happen.
We saw that happen at the endof what was it one of the Denver

(18:19):
games. Obviously that ended with thehalf court heave for three points for Denver.
Let's go to the fourth quarter.Edwards hits a three to go up.
Wolves are up one, two ninetyeight with three thirty seven to play.

(18:40):
They're in pretty good shape there.It's not over, but they're in
pretty good shape. Key sequence thatalso speaks to another issue that has to
be rectified. Kyrie Irving misses ashot, but Lively gets the offensive rebound.
They killed the walls on the boardsat key points. They're young,

(19:03):
fast moving, relentless front court people, some of whom they one of them
was a rookie, but some ofthem they added via trade off the offensive
rebound. Luca hits a three.Now it's one o two, one oh
one. Edwards misses from twenty twofeet, but Kat gets a steal.

(19:26):
Unfortunately, what does that lead to? A Jaden McDaniel's turnover. Mavericks get
the ball back one fifty six togo. PJ Washington hits from the left
baseline a three, and now youare down one oh four, one oh
two. Then you have the offensivegoaltending call on Cat. I thought it

(19:48):
was the right call. I knowsome people are still it's a frustrating situation
because it's a kind of play.Crowds wired. They feel like, yes,
we're let's play. We're with youknow, less than two minutes to
go, we'll take our chances,and it's you know, follow Slams are
always I mean, they're emotional,right, so that's nullified. But we

(20:12):
get another break, Lively travels,but then Mike Conley, who we talked
about earlier, tries to get theball inside. Terrible pass. That's a
turnover. So if I have mymath right, I think we had five
straight empty possessions five and we allunderstand that the calling cards for this team

(20:33):
is defense. Right, But you'rein the final four now, man teams
presumably are better the deeper you gointo this thing. I don't view the
Mavericks as your average number five seedat this point, and so everything's got
to be a little bit sharper.And if it's going to be a close
game, you can't just say we'regoing to rely on our defense. Your

(20:56):
defense, especially against a team thathas two skill outside players that as a
tandemer as good as you can getin dangerous game winning situations, you're going
to have to execute better. Youmay not be able to have as an
offense as good, or you maynot have as many finishers as good as
they do, but you have toexecute. You have to give yourself an

(21:21):
honest chance to miss a shot.You know, at least at least miss
a shot or two, and youcould say, well, they had decent
looks and they missed them. Youturn the ball over as often as they
did, that can't be done.And all of these things, and probably
especially about the offensive execution, isexactly why the head coach sounds like he

(21:42):
might have been a little bit onthe on the cranky side. I would
say, By the way, bradShaw and Bryant Kfe text line is open
six for six eight six. Ourold friend johno Jampa rights more obsessed Draymond
with Rudy or the Meerkat with JohnnyFlynn's smile. We had the Meerkat anniversary

(22:07):
yesterday. He was hired on thisdate. I don't know how many years
ago it's been now almost has gotto be less than twenty. Obviously,
today I think is the anniversary ofthe announcement that the Wolves were moving to
New Orleans, Louisiana. I thinkthe headline in the New Orleans Times,
picky yun was we got them somethinglike that. But of course ultimately they

(22:30):
didn't get them, because the realhero of the story was David Stern,
the now late commissioner, who basicallysaid, what that's too good a market?
How did you guys really try toget it done here? What's happening
there. Think about that. Thepeople running the team were more than willing

(22:52):
to make the sale let him goto New Orleans. It was David Stern
who basically said, come on,man, this is stupid. Unfortunately,
they also a guy named Lenn Taylorto get the thing done a couple more
texts real quick. In any case, I think we're gonna develop most of
these points throughout the show, andthere's there's certainly more to get to,

(23:14):
but I think for me, thosewere the key talking points from what took
place last night atmosphere. For me, it keeps getting better. I continue
it sounds like a broken record,but I don't think it's recency biased.
When it was going good last nightand early it was going very good,
and in other stretches loudest I've everheard that building loudest. I don't even

(23:37):
think anything is close other than maybea couple of games in the Denver series
and before that a couple of gamesin the Phoenix series. It does seem
to be building in that regard.And I heard a couple of national people
say, man, that crowd doesnot need any sort of you know,
artificial pumping up to get itself goingat all, So the atmosphere was rich.

(24:03):
Close. Game is good. Attimes, it felt like a good
game until, as I said,I thought it didn't down the stretch.
In fact, you can say reallyboth teams committed turnovers down the stretch that
turned it over, that offered opportunitiesfor the other club. They hit some
shots, obviously, and the Wolvesturned them all over so much they feel

(24:25):
like they weren't even taking any shots. Bottom the hour pause here, I'm
going to get to some more texts. We're also going to discuss, and
I don't know how much conversation therehas been about this on the fan today.
I'm curious. Maybe you can tellme if you've heard about this.
It's become a national talking point.Regarding one aspect of last night's game,

(24:48):
I put it under the classification ofan invention of people who really are more
interested in creating storylines because they're sexy, they're hot, and we've heard them
before. Then they are actually beinglogical and reasonable in the way they bounce

(25:11):
off of something that one of theMinnesota Timberwolves said before this series even began.
So we'll get to that. Keepthe text coming, and eventually calls
a listen line, I should say, the talkback line is open. Don't
be shy. Many of you arestarting to get into the talk back line.
Please use it via the iHeart appKfan and click on the microphone to
speak in speak to us for Ithink a minimum of thirty seconds whatever you

(25:33):
have. If you want to timeto know what's happening to your favorite KFN
shows, you can make your voiceheard on the Bradshaw and Bryant Kfan text
line. This let us know whatyou have to say by texting that message
to six four six eighty six.That's six four six eighty six standard text
message and data rate supply. HeyDan John from Cotts grow huge world span.

(25:55):
One thing that really bobos me islike Ant has the ball and the
seconds are running down in the quarter. I think he's taken off a little
too ladies, waiting for the clockto get to like six seconds, and
then you're stuck because the fifth defenderis the clock, and he ends up
turning the ball over taking a badshot. You know, once in a
while he put something up that drops. But I think we're wasting a lot

(26:18):
of possessions of the time is asthe time is taking. Sam Mitchell is
going to join us at about fourthirty this afternoon. I'll tell you what.
Let's go ahead and open phone linesnow eight hundred three two zero five
three two six. We don't takea lot of calls during the week occasionally
on Sermons, and my sources sayI haven't confirmed this yet. My sources

(26:45):
say Sunday Sermons could be a veryhistoric broadcast in KFE and history. So
I'm going to say about it.I think broadcast is a that's a key
part of it. Yes, butI don't want to like over promise in
case, you know, something goespair shaped on the deliveries. But we'll
just leave it at that could bea very emotionally satisfying day on this edition

(27:10):
of Sunday Sermons. But if you'vegot wolves stuff to get to call us
now text us. We'll mix thesein the rest of the program. That's
my promise. Outside of Sam's appearanceon the program, As I said,
four thirty, to get back toclean up, to do the covenant cleanup
on the we're just not playing linksbasketball. I always know I can count

(27:33):
on Dan Minnesota for getting to thebottom of it. So I have to
make a correction. And now itcomes back to me. It wasn't a
player, a Links player who utteredthe famous quote. It was assistant coach
Kelly Kramer who said it. AndDan Minnesota has clipped three paragraphs that sound

(27:57):
like something I would have written allthe I don't know, because I can't
tell from the Link whether it wasfrom a column I wrote or not.
I'll just read what was written thenby either me or some other very snarky
writer for the Start Tobune. Atthe time, even before the season began,
the quotes already had taken on acomedic Casey Stengele like tone. After

(28:19):
the Links lost to Orlando in theMinnesota team's first preseason game, assistant coach
Kelly Kramer had expressed disappointment, quote, they got us back on our heels.
She said, that's not Link's basketball. Seeing as how it took the
Boston Celtics a couple decades to establishCeltic pride, and this had only been

(28:40):
the first game in Link's history.Nobody's exactly sure when the Links had established
Links basketball. Although I was admonishedby a Texter, I hate to bring
it to you, Dan, butthat's not the greatest sports quote ever.
In fact, they had a teamwith who they formed an identity, and
so yeah, I think by themsaying we didn't play basketball, that's valid.

(29:04):
I don't see how you could lookat it any other way than a
team establishing identity through practice and thenthey went on the floor and they didn't
perform. I think most reasonable peoplewould say, I'm going to need to
see it in games before I'm gonnaunderstand what the identity of any given team

(29:26):
is. Now fairness and savagery.Another Texter reminds us that the team was
coached then by Brian Agler. Hehad previously coached the Columbus Quest and the
now defunct ABL Tanya Edwards on thatteam, Katie Smith, they won championships,
and so Agler reassembled a lot ofthat Quest team with the link.

(29:48):
So his point is what they reallymeant was or didn't we just didn't play
Quest basketball. But she couldn't sayQuest basketball because the Quest no longer existed.
I stand by my position that itwas. That's one of the funniest
sports quotes we've had in a marketin which we've had quite a few over
the years. Before I mix insome calls, well you know what,

(30:11):
though, maybe I'm going to giveyou a production assignment while I take calls,
because this the point. The controversyyou're about to get into might be
more vivid if instead of me readingthe comments, you find the comments,
but it might take a minute ortwo to find them. Here's what we're
looking for. After the walls knockedoff Denver in game seven, Anthony Edwards,

(30:34):
the famous bring ass conversation proceeded inthat that well, no, actually
that comment may have the comment I'mlooking for I may have come after Edwards
is quoted about his thoughts in theDallas series and about the fact that he
his guy, the guy he wasgoing to be matched up with, is
going to be Kyrie Irving. Ifyou can find that sound fine if it's

(30:56):
not the end of the world ifyou can. But if you can find
it, look for it and letme know once you get it. Brett
Blake Moore. In the meantime,I will start mixing in some phone calls
as promised. We'll take them inthe order in which they were received.
That means we will start with Brianin St. Paul. Brian, thanks
for waiting, Hello, Hi Dan. Just quick observation. One one of

(31:23):
the things that frustrated me last nightwas Edwards at the top of the key
and it looked like five Maverick defendersready to double him or trap him or
get the ball out of his hands. And as I was watching, I
was wondering, well, what couldthey do to stop that? And I
felt the same way sometimes in theNuggets series, do they not feel that

(31:44):
they can put Edwards in the post, on the block or at the free
throw line so that he could getthe ball there and he would maybe know,
okay, where the double team's comingand he's starting closer to the basket.
And I have the same deal abouttowns. If they're not going to
guard Towns with a big yeah,then they've got to They've got to punish

(32:05):
them on the block, and thatthat's how they'll shrink the points in the
paint discrepancy from last night. Andthen they they got to to me,
they got to figure out a wayto make Doncic guard somebody m HM.
And I wondered, if I knowBarkley kind of got criticized for saying they
should bench Gobert at halftime of theof Game seven of the Nuggets series.

(32:29):
But what I thought he meant wasthat they were struggling so bad offensively.
Maybe nos Reid would give them betterspacing and more offense. And I'm wondering
if this may be a NAS series. I'm not saying you bench Golbert,
but he's got to maybe have areduced role because they gotta get a They
got to figure out a way toget Towns and Edwards space to operate without

(32:52):
having three guys ready to load upon them. I appreciate the phone call
and the and the thoughts, andI'll shay it again what I said the
other day that this is what Iappreciate about the position that this club is
in, that we can have thesesorts of conversations and they'll be relevant to
something, and instead of being relevantto somebody else's playoff series, it's the

(33:15):
Wolves. They lost a winnable game. There were many frustrating aspects to it,
but this is kind of the funof it, right, is reacting
to whatever takes place, good orbad, and when things aren't going well,
what do you? What do theygot to do? That, to
me is what we've been waiting forfor twenty years, both basketball and hockey,
quite frankly, and that's to methe beauty of what this represents,

(33:37):
even in losing last night. Now, I know, if you're a hardcore
fan, it's maybe harder to beas philosophical as I'm being because I'm not
a huge, necessarily fan of theteam. I am a fan of it
happening. I am a fan thathere we are in this situation, and
every once in a while we geta call like that that reminds us this
is the greatest thing for obviously asports talk station that doesn't always talk sports

(33:59):
but wants to when there's a hotstory on Towns. I would definitely agree
that. You know, I'd liketo see a little bit more what they
started to establish from time to timeagainst Denver and even Phoenix. To a
degree, I don't think they're goingto go back to the old fashioned way
of every time down they're going to, you know, they bring Towns down
low and you're, you know,throw the ball into him from the wing.

(34:22):
But I do think there should bemore of that. On the issue
of Rudy versus Nas, we saidbefore the series began. In fact,
I think we said it yesterday,this might well be a series we're depending
on matchups and situations, it mightbe helpful to have a little more NOAs
they're not gonna sit Rudy. Infact, Rudy was the I think Rudy
was plus ten last night. Hehad acknowledged and I think he's right.

(34:46):
He's got a rebound better than hedid. They had way too many offensive
rebounds. We talked about at leastone of them late in the game that
gave them a second shot that ledto a luc of three. That was
pretty key the last two and ahalf three minutes of the ball game.
So the challenge is for any coach, I think, is to possibly to

(35:07):
properly tweak without overcorrecting, because whatwe're learning is each of these games kind
of take on a life of theirown, identity, of their own and
it doesn't even necessarily mean it's goingto play out on several levels the same
way in game two. If youthink there's certain principles you need to stick
to, do it. But whateverit takes to create a greater inside presence,

(35:32):
and it doesn't have to just betowns posting up it could it can
be even wing players getting inside thatdefense and if there's there, folks are
collapsing. Getting the ball to ashooter on the outside, which I can
then live with if you're collapsing thedefense, there wasn't enough of that.

(35:52):
There were definitely not enough free throwsas well. Both of those issues were
rather massive. Let's go next toBrett out of Rochester. Brett, you're
on the fan. Hello. Whatyou just said before you took calls is
exactly what I was calling about.Aunt said specifically, I got Kyrie in

(36:15):
the end of that interview, andthat's what I think is a little bit
too soon of him to say.Now, that's Dant's mentality. I don't
think that's ever going to change.But I think when you're heading into the
Western Conference finals, uncharted territory anda team that hasn't really been there obviously
before and in twenty plus years orso, I think that gave Kyrie billboard

(36:36):
material for three days as you wassitting at home watching with his family and
the couch that comes across, andI think that probably perked his years up
a little bit and maybe gave themsome extra motivation that might not have been
necessary. But again, that's AnthonyEdits, so that's what we're going to
deal with, and I like it, but I think that when you're dealing
with veterans, sometimes it can comeback to haunt you. Thanks very much
for the call, because now youcan lead. You're leading us right,

(36:59):
Brett with leading right back to thestory I had teased before the break and
in fact, Blakemore's got the sound. This is Anthony Edwards with the TNT
crew as they congratulate him on eliminatingthe defending world champion Denver Nuggets in game
number seven. Watching the first twogames of this series against the Dallas Mavericks.

(37:22):
Early thoughts on playing the Mats,It's gonna be fun, man.
You know my matchup gonna be Kyrie, so that's gonna be fine. We're
gonna see what I can do versusappreciate your time. Go dogs. I
don't know how more clearly I cansay this. There is, in my
opinion, nothing wrong with what AnthonyEdwards said. There now I know is

(37:47):
the only reason it's being made intosomething is Irving brought it up. So
I'm not here to say that itisn't possible the way many many basketball competitive
players are wired that they can useit and turn it into something. And
I know that's why people say,well then why even go down that road

(38:10):
at all. He didn't say hewas going to dominate the matchup. He
basically said, that's my matchup andit's going to be fun and we'll see
how it goes. That somehow hasbeen turned into I know on ESPN,
this has become the story you neverpoked the bear example of how Anthony Ederar

(38:32):
is just too young. You can'tyoung, fella, you can't do that
with a veteran player who's established.I think it's preposterous. I think it's
absurd, and I think it's it'sbeing given oxygen in large measure because it's
a I guess you could say,a storyline that is so easy to follow,

(39:00):
and we've heard it and read itso many bleeping times before that the
jackals who do the job of analyzingthis thing can't help but run with it,
like got something I was looking for, an angle, there's the angle.
What the hell is this kid tryingto do? Call it? I've
heard it described as Anthony Edwards calledout Kyrie Irving. That's ridiculous, that's

(39:28):
stupid. That's not close to whathe said. And again, are we
honestly saying that Kyrie Irving is notcapable of doing what he did in the
first because he was the best playerin the court first half twenty four points
at halftime, he burned Anthony Edwards. Anthony Edwards, a willing capable defender,

(39:52):
did not know what to do withKyrie Irving's quickness. I'm not ripping
them because there a lot of otherplayers have been in that's very good defensive
players who've been in that exact sameposition can't deny it. But I am
firmly of the belief that this isonly worthy as an angle, as a

(40:15):
major angle being pursued. I knowwhy it's pursued. It's sexy. You
got the sound, young fellow,What are you doing? You can go
off for hours on end. It'smoronic to me as an example of exactly
that. And you know, we'veheard Michael Jordan was one of the best

(40:35):
at inventing stuff that didn't exist.Kyrie, to me, invented something here.
Now, even as he was sayingit, he made it sound like
he was kind of chuckling and kindof likes how competitive he is, et
cetera, et cetera. But Iwould argue that even in his answer,
Kyrie misrepresented we just played it let'splay it a second time. So people,
if they missed it the first time, tell me what is mocking or

(41:00):
where is the bravado? Where isthe the the poking the bear challenge?
In what Anthony Edwards is about tosay getting the Minneapolis this week and watching
the first two games of this seriesagainst the Dallas Mavericks. Early thoughts on
playing the MAVs, It's gonna befun. Man. You know, my

(41:21):
matchup gonna be Kyrie, So that'sgonna be fine. We're gonna see what
I can do versus the Come on, man, here's the other irony.
The national folks who are screaming aboutthis are the same ones who win an
Anthony Edwards says, I want allthe responsibility. It goes with being the

(41:42):
main guy. I want to guardthe other team's best player. I want
all of that. They're usually arouse, they're goes. Oh by god,
he's a throwback. So what MichaelWilbon told us he loves about Anthony
Edwards in many and this isn't Wilbonby the way. He went on from
this rant today that I'm aware of. I think it was stephen A among
others. But it's just so ironic. It's almost like, well, what

(42:07):
do you want? What you wantis what's convenient for you to establish and
run with a rant, regardless ofhow accurate that might be, or how
sensible a position that may be,how logical that might be, on the
basis of what indeed he said,I just I just shake my head and
I'm not again, I'm not surprised, and it's not going to keep me

(42:29):
up at night, But my god, please, we're gonna talk to Sam
Mitchell about this. We're gonna gethis reaction to that at four thirty,
because I am curious as a guywho's played in the league and knows how
players are wired and what sometimes thesilly stuff that gets them going off in
a a in a great direction fora game or a quarter, whatever the

(42:51):
case may be. But I thinkSam agrees that this is kind of preposterous
and utterly and completely overblown. EdwardWords has to play better. No question,
he did look tired. I wasmuch more bothered by the you know
or what did he say? We'refatigued, We're tired? That didn't make

(43:15):
any sense to me. I mean, as in, there was reason for
the team to be tired. Helooked like, you know, it's a
hard guy to run with, andI'm talking about Kyrie now. Kyrie was
much less affected effective second half.I think he was one for nine from
the floor the second half. Butthat's the beauty of having to go to

(43:36):
guys. Luca picked up the slackand then the fourth quarter was absurd and
I already got some text from peoplegoing, oh, we got to watch
Luca whine after every call. Iwas baseline watching him closely. I thought
he was on his best behavior lastnight. I thought it may just be
luck, it may be the circumstanceof the game. I don't know,

(43:59):
but I didn't think he was obnoxiousabout that at all, and we've mocked
that as much as anybody. Ithought he was really good. But Anthony
Edwards has a lot to learn.There's still there's no question about that.
He's got a lot to learn.But I think the caller, even as
he's calling it out, has nailedit. This is who he is.

(44:21):
So you either kind of accept thepersonality because usually it's getting embraced and praised,
or you don't. And I probablywould have had more difficulty. I
didn't like what he did waving tothe crowd at the end in Denver.
That's the thing that seemed to geta joker going a little bit. I
didn't lose my mind over it becauseit wasn't the end of the world.
It wasn't the biggest part of thestory. I didn't love it, to

(44:42):
be honest with you, I didthose sorts of things I didn't like.
There's a couple of things Edwards haspulled on the court, like, ah,
man, I'm not sure you're goingto want to do that in two
or three years, kid, Butyou're young yet. Whatever this one,
like I said, I just shakemy head in amazement at the desire to
well, yeah, I've seen thisbefore, and Kyrie talked about it.

(45:06):
So the assumption is, if Kyriebrought it up, that must have been
exactly why he played the way heplayed. I'm guessing he played the way
he played no matter what he said, because his team needed him to.
Luca did not have a good firsthalf. You're on the road, you
want to get something established. Hegot it going a little bit offensively and
said, hey, I got somestuff going. I'm going to you know,

(45:27):
in this case, keep coming afterit. More calls later in the
four eight hundred three two zero fivethree two six A bunch of outstanding texts
to get to Sam Mitchell bottom ofthe hour. Are you preparing for a
big Top five and five today?I've got one in the bank, I've
got one ready and as I mentioned, well we'll keep the talkbacks coming as

(45:49):
well. If you've got things tosay you just want to voice it without
waiting on hold, you can dothat as well.