Top 5, Connelly Safe? - Bumper to Bumper 5/23/24 Hour Three

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Fan. Just in case you missedit, it's the top five spot Staggers
of the day. Now it's timefor Dan Barrero's Top five and five driven
by Bordon Volvo, America's most awardedVolvo retailer. All right, top five

(00:20):
and five. It's a shorty bitof goodie. If we have to,
we can extend it because we're guestfree the rest of the way out at
six tonight for Links basketball coverage.Right here in the fan. We've been
talking about it all show, butI feel like it deserves mention. It
is the a topic the Wolves spoileralert a drop game one to Dallas last
night. One await one oh fiveof Chris Finch quote. It was a
rough film session, told the guys, it's been a long time since I've

(00:43):
been this disappointed in your effort.He goes on and say the Western Conference
finals just started. Not sure ifthey got the memo, but they got
it this afternoon. Other news,Mike Conley continues to be questionable with the
right solace strain basically a calf andthe other thing I wanted to mention you
mentioned it off the top, butfor these who were not here at the
top, what's more egregious of acall to win against the Wolves, the

(01:03):
cat offensive goaltending or the Conley pushin the back, because they were both.
I still don't get it as abasketball casual. The offensive rolletending.
I thought I thought it was close. I thought it was the correct I'm
not offended by the call. Iunderstand some of the frustration on it,
especially when it comes and how doyou decide when, and there's some subjectivity

(01:26):
to it. The commonly call lookedthinned to me when it was made.
It again, without actually being closeto the play, I can't say for
sure that there wasn't, you know, a subtle but effective shove. Somebody
said that's actually the perfect description forMike Conley's contributions to this club this year,

(01:52):
and it is. He is.That's what he is. He's subtle
but effective. He wasn't yesterday,by the way. He had a bad
game one as I'm sure even hewould agree, not just shooting, but
in terms of decision making. Iexpect that he's likely to bounce back.
He needs to bounce back. Butthis is not a night where I thought
we can go with the officials beingjobbed. I don't I believe of anything.

(02:15):
Again, we did not force theofficials to make more calls because we
fell in love with the threes andeven though a lot of them earlier were
going in. I think it itsort of changed our temperament and our flow
and made it too easy to say, now they're making it hard for us
to get in. I just popanother three and we're not a volume three

(02:37):
point shooting team then. And toSam Mitchell's point, you do have you
should have a physical advantage with Katand they. I don't think we're very
effective at getting him to the rightplaces. Some of it was he missed
shots, but all those I thinkcontributed to the fact that the offense was

(02:57):
not good enough to overcome a greatfirst half performance from Kyrie and a mythic
fourth quarter effort down the stretch fromLuca. I mean, I thought the
common call was soft and I watchedsoccer, so I mean that's there was
no contact there. The Twins ofthe day off today. They're coming off
a series win against the Nationals.They're a turn home to take on the
Rangers. Bailey over on the bumpfor the Twins. Yeah, it's we've

(03:22):
talked about it. We had agood conversation with Corey provis about it earlier
in the week. Now they did. At that point they had lost seven
in a row. They won thelast two in Washington. They'd been you
know, the closer was bitter aboutbasically saying he was forced to throw a
curveball turn into a walk off homerun. I think it was the Sunday

(03:42):
before, and then we had themanager on load on the hitters, saying,
we know we want to hit fastballs, we know we love crushing fastballs,
but you've got to adjust more quicklyto the fact that the pitcher you're
facing throwing breaking balls, and that, I guess is scotting report on the
Twins. So my guess his teamsare going to keep throwing junk until the

(04:05):
Twins prove that they're willing to makethose adjustments. It's a very when you
play as unevenly as they have.The record, which is I think somewhere
still near five hundred, probably looksworse than that because there's just no consistency
to what you're doing. He said, it's hard to get a feel on
it, it's hard to gain anya measure of momentum. And let's remember

(04:28):
that the seventeen and three was largely, not totally, but largely built on
dominating the one of the worst teamsin baseball, the Chicago White Sox.
Now, I know you're not muchof a golf guy, and I don't
bring it up typically unless it's theMasters or something like This transcends golf into
the mainstream because Scotti Scheffler is whatwe'd call in pro wrestling, the most

(04:50):
white meat, babyface good guy ofall time. You know, he doesn't
do anything wrong. And now thelatest update is that the police officer in
the case is now being disciplined fornot turning on his body cam during the
arrest. So now the only thingwe've got as of now is what looks
like a Bigfoot video where it's blurryanything really you can it's it's probably I

(05:13):
don't know, fifty I don't know. That's why I'm my golf game.
Is it enough for fifty sixty yardsout? Is there enough that you see
there to believe that a felony becauseone of the charges I think against like
a felony is going to stick becausemy guess is it's going to be very
difficult to do that. Yeah,he didn't have it on right. He
didn't have his report. He hadone job to to me. I mean,
you could see the moment where Scottytries to go through and there and

(05:36):
he's the cops kind of holding onto the door, but it doesn't look
like he's being dragged and assaulted.I don't know. Well that's the key,
and so you know, I don'tknow how that's going to be resolved,
but I think it does lend credenceto the notion that's going to maybe
be a harder case to prove.And I don't know if this is a
judge or a jury case, they'regoing to come to some kind of a

(05:57):
settlement where the golfer just wants itto go away and he pleads to a
lesser charge because those things do happen. I don't know, but I did
see that development today. It isworth noting that the cop involved, as
you say, has been disciplined,and Scotty's people have basically said, we're
not taking a settlement where yeah,we didn't do anything wrong, so bleep
you. That's where it gets tricky. Then it could end up in a

(06:18):
lawsuit, and then you've got biggerissues as well. Exactly one more.
I think this is a big lGoing back to baseball, the MLB says
robot home plate umpires are unlikely fornext season. Man Manfred said there's not
been much progress in the minor leaguesthis year as the MLB had hoped for,
and then when and if an automaticball strike is adopted, it would

(06:40):
likely be a challenge system. Idon't want to get rid of umps,
but I want that challenge system today. What do you mean a challenge even
on pauls and strikes? Yes,well, how many challenges you're going to
get, Well, that's I don'tknow how many get by, like twenty.
I don't think they get that manyin the minors. But if you've
been to it, yeah, ifyou've been to a Saints game, you'll
see it every now and then.Well they'll put their head on their helmets
and there's their hand on their helmets. Now, you're one of those people

(07:02):
who thinks it'll actually all the controversieswill go away if you go to the
robot umpires, and it won't.If I gets click. That's the reason
I want it to happen, becauseI revel in hitters losing their mind about
being called out on a third strikewhen they're convinced that it wasn't anywhere close
to the plate. I live forthat kind of kind of schadenfreuda, which

(07:23):
is probably says a lot more aboutme than than anybody else. When we
come back. There is another nuggetthat even the day after a disappointing loss
in Game one at home to theMavericks might console in a significant way and
a sort of Timberwols fans. We'llget to that next. The fanomtaktech dot
com. I'm gonna give you shotto put a grand in your hand at

(07:44):
the National Cash Contest. Head toCaffan dot com and are the keyword grand
for this hour. The keyword isGrand. Caffan dot com keyword Grand.
Come out with our guy Max fora Game three watch party this Sunday at
Gras Provisions and Libation starting at sixinto a great food and drinks while registering

(08:09):
to win great prizes. Full detailsright now kfean dot com keyword calendar.
One of the intriguing concerning subplots,even as the Timberwolves were invigorating the local
sports landscape with this run, wasthe nagging concern that the more successful the

(08:37):
Wolves are during this run, themore tempted fledgling or floundering organizations might be
to throw the kitchen sink at thepresident of basketball Operations, Tim Connley.

(09:01):
Word on the street is that Conleyhas an out in his contract after this
season, which he has expected,like most people would do, to exercise.
Not that mean he has to leave, but means he might get a
raise of some sort, and itdoes open the door to perhaps another position.

(09:24):
The Detroit Pistons were the team that, in an odd sort of way,
perverse sort of ways, scared people, not because the organization is in
good shape, but because it mightbe so desperate with how bad a shape
it is in that it will makeTim Conley an offer that he wouldn't be
able to refuse. There was evenspeculation that it might be as much as

(09:46):
fifteen that they might be willing tospend fifteen million a year to get in
a new president of basketball operations.So here's the good news. Woj Bomb
suggests that the Pistons have hired TrajanLangdon to become the franchise's new president of

(10:09):
basketball operations, and sides are beginningto work on a deal for the New
Orleans GM to oversee the organization.So now there may be a couple of
other open jobs I don't know of, but that's the one. My gut
told me that Conley was not goingto be a wanting to leave again that

(10:31):
quickly. I think he wants toyou know, he didn't get to kind
of finish the job in Denver becausethe Wolves made an offer he couldn't refuse,
and I think I don't think hewants to move again. Plus,
as attractive as it can be,well again, who am I to say?
I mean, if you can doubleyour money, most people are going
to take that deal. But there'sa good chance that Conley's gonna end up

(10:54):
with a raise here that might,you know, lower that gap anyway.
And beyond that, it can bedaunting. You could say it's fresh,
new and exciting because you're starting fromscratch. They're going to give you allegedly
enough you know, resources and enoughtime to figure it out. And you
know, there's some general manager wholove the old blank slate routine. But

(11:18):
bottom line here is if the WOJbomb is accurate, and there's no reason
to believe it isn't, the Pistonspossibility has now evaporated. And that was
the most obvious one, the onewe've heard or we've seen written about from
people who cover the Pistons published reportsindicating that they were going that the Pistons
were likely to wait to the endof the playoffs, or at least until

(11:41):
the Timberwolves were eliminated, to tryto reach out and to see if something
might be doable. My assumption generallyis they probably already reached out behind the
scenes and maybe they didn't get muchmuch of an answer back. So on
a day where you know, Wolvesfans are hurting a little bit after last
night night, I think encouraging newsthere that the Pistons option does not exist

(12:07):
for Tim Conley. We're hoping toget Tim on tomorrow when we return to
the cage for Game two. Weare scheduled to get a visit at the
cage from Kevin Harlan. We're lookingforward to that. Still working out all
the logistics on it, but thatis what we've been told to be able
to do, and we expect ofcourse, as always Johnny Athletic, we'll
stop by there as well. Acouple of leftover Wolves texts letting thirty two

(12:33):
year old Kyrie and thirty two poundsoverweight, Luca drive around you, grab
you at their offhand and fall downafter jumping backwards into you is not Wolves
basketball can't fall for YMC a noonball crap again. I here's what here.
If Luca or Kyrie was playing foryour team, you know what,

(12:54):
you know what, you'd call thatcrafty crafty. Yeah, that's that's a
veteran with a little bit of guile. Referees were not a story. Sorry
for me last night. There's sometimeswhen I get that they might be,
but they were not. The paintdifferential is what matters. Lack of free

(13:18):
throws matters. A bad free throwpercentage not helpful. Horrible offensive execution into
the first half that turned what mighthave been a nine point eight or nine
point halftime lead into a three pointhalftime lead hurt big. And so did
five empty possessions down the stretch ofthat game, including in that grouping at

(13:43):
least two turnovers, maybe even threeas well. So those are the things
I think they had a lot moreto do with the issue. It's interesting
because everybody who's in it now hasa big two, so to speak.
Denver had a big two. ButI think you could make the argument that

(14:07):
the Mavericks big two in some waysis more challenging or more daunting because they're
both wing players. But they're notunbeatable. And as I said, as
as bad as the Wolves played ina number of areas yesterday, it was
not as if it was a blowoutgame. It was a one or two
plays either way kind of game.But as the head coach said last night

(14:30):
and reiterated today, if you're goingto be in a close game, you're
gonna have to execute a lot betterthan the than the Wolves did last night.
We saw some of the vestiges offourth quarter meltdowns that frustrated us during
the season. Yeah, a coupleof people, it texted on the on

(14:54):
the Pistons news, so they areindeed paying attention. James writes, I
thought when the Wolves created open threeswith good to offense, they made them,
but when they settled for threes theylargely missed. There's something to that.
I think they settled because it wasgoing to be hard work. They
were frustrated by their inability to getinside. I texted last night from my
media position that they seated in frontof me for the first quarter was Shaquille

(15:22):
O'Neill, So I think I tooka shot at the back of his head
and he did not stay there.I think obviously they got green room options,
I'm sure on the TNT crew,but he I think he strikes from
this guy kind of likes to getto the court a little bit just to
get the feel, and did notstrike up a conversation with him. He
looked pretty focused, and it's like, you don't want to like whisper in

(15:45):
his ear from behind, you know, although he did he did fistbump rosie
everybody on our row. He kindof like turned away from us towards the
court, and he turned around onhis way over and he, oh,
he's giving us all fist bumps onthe first row to you know, classic
shack, charismatic guy, just tryingto, you know, kind of bond

(16:06):
a little bit. But that wasthe extent of our conversation and our efforts
to get any of the TNT crewso far, sadly has been unsuccessful.
We're out at six, so wehave one more break. We're gonna do
it right now. We're gonna breakfor the bond of the hour now.
We took some calls early let's givethe five o'clock listeners a chance to get
in on the fun, either viathe phone lines eight hundred three two zero

(16:30):
five three two six or the talkback line. You can use that as
well if you don't want to waitand just get it out of your system
and move on with the rest ofyour life. That is available to you
as well. We know the branchon Brian KVN text line will stay steady
six four six eighty six. We'reout at six tonight, thirty minutes early

(16:51):
for Minnesota Links basketball. Yeah,it's not just the Wolves on the fan,
it's the Links as well. It'sthe bumper to Bumper show rap.

(17:11):
You're hearing the enough Said music alittle earlier than usual because we are indeed
out at six, but it's onlyfive three two, so we got plenty
of time to explore lots of angles, and I hope well we get some
phone calls to help us out.Eight hundred three two zero five three two
six. I mean, I'll giveyou the if you need to be led

(17:33):
by the hand. The obvious tossup questions are do the game one results
worry you significantly enough to wonder whetherthe Wolves are already in Trouble. Sam
Mitchell told us that he believes theWolves do need to win Game two.
He thinks going down oh two inthis series might be a little bit problematic,
and so you need to batten downthe hatches. Maybe that was why

(17:56):
the message was so stern from thehead coach last night and especially today.
So how did you process game numberone? If you were in the arena
last night? What did it feellike? Because I thought, again,
with each round and pretty much eachgame, the atmosphere has gotten better.

(18:19):
The intensity of the crowd I'm talkingabout has ratcheted up. It's fun.
It's a very fun atmosphere to bein the middle of, obviously, especially
when things are going well for theMinnesota Timberwolves. And are you offended that
there are national folks saying that AnthonyEdwards poked the bear, so to speak,

(18:42):
with bringing up Kyrie Irving's name atall, even though he in no
way disparaged him, and to medid exactly what we say we want from
young players, which is yeah,you know, I love the challenge of
that. I think it's easy nowto say, well, I look bad,

(19:04):
see Kyrie first half something he hadto burr up his butt about something.
I'm guessing it was more about helpinghis team because Lucas started slow and
Kyrie Irving is capable of that kindof performance. Kyrie Irving, as sam
Mitchell said, in terms of skill, he is at least a top ten

(19:30):
player, might well be a topfive. He's that skilled. And the
issue with him has been keep hishead on straight, inventing conspiracies, losing
interest in a couple of stops alongthe way to where you go? What

(19:51):
is it? What do you want? What are you doing? Making himself
available. It looks at this latedate, much to the chagrin of the
Wolves, that he has a hallin which he is locked and committed and
is playing with a I would calla serenity that we have not seen from

(20:12):
Kyrie Irving in quite some time.And that's scary because you've got to find
a way to, you know,obviously, win four of the next six
ball games. There are I thinktweaks, as sam Mitchell told us,
that this team can get to thatshould be helpful. Even with the way

(20:33):
you defend the Dallas Big two rebounding, I often believe his effort so to
that extent, I think the effortcan be better, and as it was,
as I said, it was abasically a pick him game the last
two minutes, a very close game. Most importantly got to have to stop

(20:55):
the turnovers. And that goes backto an uncharacteristic performance from Michael Conley.
Mike Conley Junior. Again, youknow, he can be streaky. He
can get you some points from timeto time, hit some shots, has
been helpful there. But the mostimportant thing he does is obviously run the
offense, and he didn't run itto his standard, to the standard that
has put this team in the positionit is in in the in the first

(21:18):
place. So all those things areon the table eight hundred three two zero
five three two six. If you'dlike to get in on some of the
fun, let me get to acouple of texts that have indeed come in.
Jeff Wrights I called Last Night bythe Wolves l and l lazy and

(21:41):
launch launch threes lazy defense all gamesad. I I don't know if i'd
call the defense lazy. I thinkit didn't adhere to its principles as well
as it had. Is that laziness? Is that just not is that allowed
of commitment to the bit? I'mnot sure. I don't know the propensity

(22:07):
to sort of fall back on launchingthrees. What are the you have the
you have the Wolves box score infront of In fact, I haven't,
I've got it. How many threepointers did we launch? Let's see,
I think it was forty nine,forty nine and they went eighteen for forty
nine. Yeah, and again theyhit you know, they hit twelve more
threes than Dallas. But pretty goodexample of it's not all about hitting threes.

(22:29):
If Dallas could have that kind ofa gap a three point line,
which by the way, they're goingto probably shoot better and still win the
ballgame. This team is at itsbest offensively, even though it's not been
a great offensive team this year,when it has at least one or two
people who are turning the corner,getting to the basket, et cetera.

(22:52):
And we did not see nearly enoughof that in the game. Now it
what was interesting after the game wasthat the head coach said, I saw
a lot of open I thought thereare a lot of a lot of threes,
A lot of threes out there thatwere good shots. I thought early,
yes, I thought not so muchin the second half, and especially

(23:17):
if they lead to a lack offree throw consistency. You got, Kat's
a great free throw shooter for abig man. Anthony Edwards a good free
throw shooter. Now Conley was justall I mean, he's a good free
throw shooter. And he missed at It wasn't a technical, it was
I think illegal defense free throw.But I think he was one for four
from the line. Rudy's Rudy.Rudy missed. But I mean that's the

(23:37):
thing. Rudy, I think tookthe more free throws than anybody was six
and you don't want him taking themost because even though he's had some good
stretches in the postseason, hitting freethrows, that's not something you want to
count on. And I want tosee them at the very least get to
the line a little bit more often. I do want to see better action

(23:59):
for Cat to do what should bea physical, dominant matchup for him.
He should win his matchup almost nomatter which big man the uh the Dallas
as busta Dallas Cowboys that the DallasMavericks were using as well. I don't
know. I don't think it shouldreally matter. Seven on one guy rights,

(24:22):
Dan not gonna lie my dabbers down. That game was there for the
taking. I feel basketball series aredifferent. I fear for the Wolves,
uh lose four games? That fearfor the Wolves losing four games in that
manner, Well, that's always thetough part about we don't know yet what's
going to happen the rest of thisseries. All we can go on is
what we have. And when that'sthe case, you do tend to overvalue

(24:45):
and say with the one we're gonnacome go, We're gonna be haunted by
this one. Because as inconsistent asthe Wolves were offensively, as good as
Kyrie was in the first half andLuca was in the fourth quarter, the
game was there. You make twoor three more offensive plays, you still
have a chance to steal that ballgame. And then you start saying,

(25:07):
well that was a home game.We already feel like we're kind of one
down here. So I understand alittle bit of that trepidation. I'm not
panicking yet. I'm still picking theWolves as I did before the series began
to start to win. I allalong, though, did feel it was
longer. I know there were somepeople thinking it was gonna be five and

(25:29):
even a sweep, and Originally Isaid Wolves in five, but then I
got past the adrenaline stage of theDenver series and said, Dallas. Dallas
is sneaky good. They're kind ofcoming together at the right time. They
figured some things out. The LucaKyrie marriage is happy now. Maybe it

(25:52):
won't be happy forever because Kyrie isweird, but it's happy now. Luca
Kyrie, he clearly understands if youhave to get into this vernacular, it's
Lucas team. But Lucas smart enoughto know I got another guy who can
take over offensively, and it wasideal. It worked perfectly for him in

(26:14):
that he Kyrie kind of bailed outLuca, who was ordinary first half and
was dominant with twenty four points inthe first half, running really circles around
Anthony Edwards, and then in thesecond half they you know, to a
large extent, Kyrie was not anywherenear as effective offensively, but Doncich pretty

(26:38):
much took over as well. Soyou've got to get back to again.
Your big two can't lose the matchupas stupendously as they did in the first
game, and I don't expect thatis going to continue. I will be
shocked if especially Anthony Edwards, doesnot end up with the kind of offense
that were more accustomed to seeing fromhim. I think that's fairly sure.

(27:02):
Uh six ty, I thought yousaid you were done. Uh, you
were for sure doing doctor Dan's inboxafter bleeping us over last Thursday. Man
a lot of bitterness. Well,what I didn't know then is what I
know now. Guards he wasn't isn'tavailable today, and that's a guardsy thing.

(27:23):
So if I had known guards hewas going to be out this Thursday,
I wouldn't have pledged what I pledged. I'm gonna blame it him.
I'm gonna put up directly out ofhim because he's off. He's got a
right to take the day off.But that's exactly what happened. Aunt was
tired because his shots weren't dropping.There's something to that. I think that
that's human nature a little bit.A number of people saying they thought Edwards

(27:48):
looked gassed down the stretch, Ithought he did too. I think Sam
Mitchell believes that although ant was inthe best shape of his career pro career
coming into this season, largely becauseof his international duties, that there's another
lay level that Edwards needs to getto in terms of physical condition, and

(28:12):
I said earlier it's unfair. It'sthe reality of his position of his job
for this team is unfair. Comparedto Luca, who's never asked to guard
the other team's best player. Theytry to hide him as much as they
can, and Kyrie Irving rarely isasked to guard the other team's best player.

(28:37):
So to a certain extent, asgreat offensive players, they can save
a lot of their energy for thatend of the court. Anthony Edwards is
not allowed to do that for thisteam. He doesn't want to do it
for this team, which is Ithink again to his credit, but in
a high level series, conference finals, I think there's under these seting you
have to learn how to not exactlyrest, but conserve your energy, when

(29:03):
to go hard, when to steadyit back, throttle it back a little
bit, And I think that stuffhe's still to a large extent trying to
figure out. Blake Moore tells me, we've got a couple of talkbacks,
and then we'll get to a phonecall out of Bloomington as well. Let's
listen to some folks who've checked inwith us. Hey, Dan Adam from
Saint Paul. I think Anthony Edwardsisn't drive in to the basket this I

(29:27):
mean, I think he didn't inGame one because every time he goes to
the basket he gets mugged across thearms. And these these officials just aren't
giving him the calls. I mean, I don't know what he's got to
do to get a call, butthey're just not giving him the calls.
And that would make me think twiceabout going down the lane too, because
I don't necessarily know that I wantto get hammered all day and not get

(29:48):
a call. Get a call.We'll start with the reacting to that one.
I don't know if you have anymore, but they Yeah, were
there a couple of drives where Ithought he there could have been files called
on the Mavericks. Yes, butI can say the same thing about Kyrie
and Luca. To be honest withyou, you can't be daunted that way.

(30:11):
You can't give up on what isan important part of your game,
what your own explosiveness and power,because he's a powerfully built guy is supposed
to give you in terms of evenif you don't score, Like I said,
almost forcing the refs to call something. And I don't think there were
enough of those overt ones where yougo, oh my god, there,

(30:33):
what game was it during the Denverseries where there was a call. In
fact, they made a big dealof it with on the T and TD
broadcast, Reggie Miller was he gothacked across the arm, came came,
the defender came slapping right down onhis arm, and he didn't get called.
And you're saying, how do youhow do you possibly miss one?
Because that was a very obvious one. But you can't. I mean,
you're letting the terrorists win if youIf you just start going down that road.

(30:59):
I think they have to a littlebit more inventive again about the positions
he gets the ball in. Iwould actually, even depending on who's on
the court, like to see themrun a little bit more selectively. But
that probably gets back to, youknow, a little better defensive performance as
well. I was looking for thebox score. Ultimately, yeah, see

(31:21):
Dallas, this isn't a Wolves like. I mean, Dallas for the game
shot forty nine percent from the floor, and that would indicate again you've got
two great shot makers. But defensively, the Wolves didn't give what we are
accustomed to getting from that team.Meanwhile, the Wolves shoot forty two point
seven percent. You can look atthat, you can look at the rebounding.

(31:41):
You can say, my god,Yet there they were, they were
right there. The big Wolves advantagewas a lot of extra points at the
three point line. You have anothertalkback has Alway said, we've got a
couple more. All right, let'sgo along the same vein here, right,
Hi Dan, I'm just calling inregards to your comment that the offensive
goaltending by was goaltending by definition.If that's the case, probably fifty percent

(32:05):
of the elops that are thrown topeople to slam down are probably offensive goaltending
as well, and they're not called. So I would say to you that
at that point in the game,to have a ref call for something,
well, the only thing I cantell you is I've heard that analogy offered,

(32:29):
and I don't buy it because inthe case of an alleoop, the
ball's not already coming off the rim, whereas in this case, on a
shot that's already been taken, it'scoming off the rims. That's not a
very persuasive approach. I think itwas close. I'm not here to say
it was the best call ever.It was reviewed allegedly, all you've replayed

(32:51):
terrorists out there, that's what youwanted, and the replay people looked at
it and came to the same conclusion. And I've heard from a lot of
folks, you know, who coverthis league around the league that there isn't
this sort of Oh my god,that was egregious and one of the worst
calls ever. Let me take aphone call and then if we have any

(33:12):
other talkbacks, we can get intothat as well. Aaron is calling us
from Bloomington. Aaron, thanks forwaiting. Go ahead. So my mom
calls me this morning. She entersseventies. She says, wow, that
was a close game. She didn'twatch the game, she saw score.
Yeah, she said, wow,that was really a close game, wasn't
it. I said, you knowwhat, there was instead of about a

(33:34):
five minute period in the first quarter, first half that I felt like it
was a good game. The restof the game, never felt like the
Wolves were even in it, andand I just didn't expect a good outcome
because they didn't have the heart inthe drive last night. Well, I'll
tell you terrible. Well here,let me be terrible. Well, he
was not. It was not agreat offensive performance from him. I'll add

(33:58):
his overall numbers. He read foundit extremely well and he had I think
a good number of assists as well, and so the all round game I
think was actually two might be twoassists short of a triple double. Now
that doesn't tell the whole story becausehe didn't score effectively, didn't score very
well. But it's interesting because myreaction was very different to that game.

(34:21):
I felt like, through much ofthe first half that I think they're in
pretty good shape here. I haven'tseen anything other than Kyrie. I haven't
seen anything from Dallas where I go, oh my god, you know this
is going to be problematic. Ithought that they were in good shape.
The problem was the game itself onthe scoreboard was pretty close. And those

(34:46):
are the games that scare you,where you go, well, you think
that they have the upper hand,but if they're not up by twelve at
the half, and by the way, again, the Wolves might have been
close to up twelve, They couldhave been up nine with a three pointer
on the left possession that that Anthonyuh where Anthony threw the ball away,
was that one of the ones wherehe threw the ball into like row ten,
he had like they two or threepasses into row ten. There was

(35:08):
a couple of your side. Yeah, and so turnover. Now Dallas has
the last shot. They turned itinto a three point play for Kyrie to
and the half. So instead ofbeing up eight or nine, you're up
three and again in close games,that's the kind of stretch that can often,

(35:29):
you know, take away any anywhatever margin VERI you have left,
I got one more for you hereon the top back line, Dan,
I think you did a great jobof breaking down the key elements of the
game that turned the game in Dallas'sfavor. Two possessions that really stood out
to me where I could tell itwas not the Wolves night. Connley gets
into the lane. Instead of hittingthe floater, he tries the l up

(35:52):
to Rudy. But you know,at that point Conley wasn't a scoring threat,
so they intercept that pass, andthen Jade McDaniel's two minutes to go
or so turns the ball over.But he looked really hesitant in that possession.
Yeah, he's one hundred percent right. At the top of the show,
we basically got into the following talkingpoints as being why the Wolves lost

(36:15):
Game one and what needs to getbetter and it started with Mike Conley playing
better as the floor leader. Getto the free throw line more. The
Wolves big two had a combined totalof four free throws. Stop falling in
love with the three pointers, evenif some of them may look open.
You have to make you have tomix to me in any game, you

(36:37):
got to do a little bit ofeverything. And if you go too hard
in one direction, I think ittook away from this team's ability to find
what the solution was to probing andgetting the ball to the basket. Big
two cannot be a scoring mismatch ofsixty three to thirty five. They're big
two over our big two. That'stoo much, almost thirty points. Even

(37:00):
I can do that math finish thefirst half offensively and the last two minutes
of the game better. You can'thave you just heard it from that last
bit of sound on the talkback line. Edwards had hit a three to give
the Wolves a four point lead withthree thirty seven to go. Kyrie misses

(37:22):
a shot, but Dallas gets theoffensive rebound that leads to a Luca three
and outs one. Edwards misses fromtwenty two. The Wolves get the ball
back off a cat steal, butthat led to the McDaniels turnover you just
heard about. Then you had theoffensive goaltending on cat, which is technically
a turnover, although it's certainly aturnover different type. And then, as

(37:44):
he alluded to, the Conley makesa bad pass to the middle to Rudy.
That's four or five straight empty possessions, which pretty much took away any
chance you had to steal the ballgame at at that point. All those
things I think are pretty significant,and none of them, by the way,

(38:06):
can't be changed. That's the wholepoint. I don't look at these
things like, oh my god,you know they just got destroyed by forty.
And it's this sort of analysis we'rejust looking for from game to game
about what you might be looking forand what when you look at the strength
of the team, what they sortof need to do to play better and
defensively, you could say all around, there needs to be probably a little

(38:30):
bit more get into them mentality thanwe saw, which has been sort of
the key to this team's success.That's ultimately how they wore down Phoenix and
obviously even Denver in a game seven. There So maybe that's part of the
process, and it certainly sounds likethe head coach was trying to get their
attention today as well. Music isearly today because we got Minnesota Links basketball

(38:52):
coming up at six, so we'redone at six today. We're back at
the Target Center cage tomorrow. Ithink Guards he's with me for part of
it, and then I think you'renot going I'll be here. No,
I didn't think so, So somebody'sgoing to join me. I think it's
gonna be Max at the end ofTowards the end of the show. We
hope we expect Kevin Harlan, wehope for Tim Conley, and we do

(39:14):
expect Johnny Athletic as well. Thanksfor listening, thanks for tweeting, thanks
for texting, and we will talkto you tomorrow beginning at three. Believer
Need Be Run