Episode Transcript
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They're finding a way and they're gonnawin tonight. See it. They got
this ninety six minutes left. They'regonna win these forty eight. This series
is there's too many j Minnesota isbetter than the nugget get them. You
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don't show us what you can do. We gotta that away, and so
long today, father should up.We don't need today. I don't know,
I don't know, and so yeah, my son's in trouble. Name
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com e Fladaway honest Tuesday BUSSYRD,a night that seemed to have nothing to
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do with the past. Leader FanFan Radio Network and k fa N dot
com. One minute thirty two secondspast three o'clock Central daylight time, Welcome
to the Bumper to Bumper Program onan absolutely beautiful Friday afternoon here in the
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twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. My name is Dan Barrero. I
host the program, guards he producers, and we are delighted that you are
along for what should be a nottoo bumpy ride between now and six thirty
this evening. You're missing the Timberwolveslive for another day? Are you hungry?
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Are you starving? There will be, As the fan has learned,
and most of you know a Gameseven sometimes Sunday afternoon or evening on What
we were reminded is Kevin Garnett's birthday. Yeah, and the anniversary year anniversary.
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Then of the loading up the pumps, oozzies, all the joints with
silencers, the k comment heading intoGame seven Sacramento Kings again, and that
was to get to fan has learnedthe Conference finals, just as Game seven
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Sunday in Denver will be to getto wow the Conference finals? Do we
have home ie advantage in uh againstLa? We did? We did,
actually we were number one see yep, but we got screwed by the not
the officials, but by the basketballguys. The Big Balls Dance. The
Big Balls Dance. The Big BallsDance ended what might have been a realistic
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chance to preside over over a parade, a championship parade. Think about it.
I do a lot. I'm sureyou do more than you think.
Well, you almost have to becausewe've had so few other things to talk
about. But last night we hadsomething different to talk about. And as
we discussed on yesterday's show from theCage, I reached a point where I
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was no longer attempting to make predictionson what might take what might transpire.
Now, Cheryl Reeve, you alreadyheard from her, the president of basketball
operations and head coach for the MinnesotaLinks, joined us from the cage yesterday.
She guaranteed victory. They're finding away and they're going to win tonight.
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Is that they got this ninety sixminutes left, They're going to win
these forty eight. I guess myfollow up question should have been what about
the other forty eight? But I'msure she would have said, let's get
this forty eight first, Yeah,and then we'll get back to you.
We'll worry about that late. That'sexactly it. But Cheryl Reeve unequivocal in
her guarantee, and she looks likea genius because not only of course did
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the Wolves win, they dominated ina way boys and girls, that has
rarely been done in the postseason inNBA history. Forget Wolve's history, NBA
history. There were times when Iwas looking around, like a lot of
people there and probably a lot ofpeople who are watching on TV, going,
what's going on here? What isthis? Can this be worth two
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victories? Is there a way toget like two victories out of this,
and I know I heard it onthe way home that there were people saying,
if the commissioner had done his job, this series would already be over
because Jamal Murray would have indeed beensuspended for Game three this and it would
have been a rap already, andwe wouldn't have had to even worry about
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the drama associated with a game numberseven out of the box. In the
blink of an eye, Wolves aredown nine to two, Minnesota nine two,
three minutes in. Again the game'stoo long to actually think, oh
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my god, but you could feelit in the crowd because and I didn't
blame the crowd for thinking, ohmy god, even though there are a
million nine to two leads that earlyin a game that become meaningless. But
because of what had taken place theprevious three games, it was hard not
to couple it, put it all, connect it and say, oh god,
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this this could be a long nighttonight. And it ended up being
a long night tonight. But itwas a long night for the other club.
The numbers speak for themselves. Threeminutes into the game. Over the
next forty one minutes, Minnesota outscoredthe Denver Nuggets. The world champion Denver
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Nuggets by fifty seven points. Thatis a nice past. I mean,
that's not even Those are numbers youassociate with college games between you know,
powerful teams and hyphenated teams. Rightin December fifty se I had beat him
by fifty seven. Now, thefinal score wasn't that great, but it
was great enough. What was itforty five? Yes, but over those
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forty one minutes it was one twelveto fifty five. And there was a
weird contradiction last night I think atTarget Center in that nothing of what took
place, Nothing of what took placelast night, regardless of whether the win,
the Wolves winn or lose on Sunday, reminded me of the past,
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of particularly the Timberwolves past. Notthe way they guarded again, not the
way they led by Mike Conley,ran a professional offense. Again. Not
the way Jaden McDaniels grabbed the bowlby the testicles and took advantage of,
oh, we're going to put ourweakest defender on him because he done what's
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he going to do? Offensively andmade Denver pay. Not the way the
Timberwolves kept the dufest factor low.Relatively few stupid fouls, especially by probably
you can argue the most important playerin this series starting with last night's game,
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and for whatever happens in Game seven, Karl Anthony Towns, as in,
I'm not going to get in foultrouble tonight. Now there's a theory
that some of that had to dowith the way the refs called it,
and then you're back to, well, what are we going to expect from
the refs on Sunday? I don'tknow, But my point is everything they
did, the degree to which theydid it, the absurdity of the gap
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in the game, and the performance, even though all does is ties it
up three to three, doesn't winyou. The series has nothing. And
this is the good part, boysand girls, nothing to do with the
Timberwolves past. You don't want tobe linked any longer to the Timberwolves past.
That's to me. The declaration thisteam, with this regular season and
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even posting to this point, seemsto be proclaiming, pronouncing, And that's
why I had these weird, Idon't know, acid flashbacks when I look
up on the big screen and theyare announcing that in the first row baseline
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opposite the Wolves, Well, Iguess you say, opposite the baseline near
where the wolves are. It's thereturn of Isaiah Junior Jr. J Ryder.
I care, I care man,and I'm going what are you doing?
I was puzzled, what are youdoing? I get it. It's
alumni. That's part of the traditionfor a lot of teams. We bring
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people back. But at some pointit shouldn't be we just bring him back.
Everybody who played here, you shouldpick a choose. Isaiah jrj Rider
is a throwback, a link tothe most dysfunctional of Timberwol's days. This
team is the other side, especiallylast night, of this functional. So
unless they've got just a really good, perverse, puckish sense of humor at
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six hundred First Avenue or one MaleClinic Square, whatever we call it these
days, why do no don't dothat? Maybe it was exercising the demons
one last time back. Yeah,you got to bring him back to fully
exercise Flip did with the incense?Did he pick up his uh? Was
he in his seats at game time? For? Was he late? Well?
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I don't know if it's a goodquestion. I saw him leave at
one point and he's sitting next togoogleg Yeah, Tom Googliatov was there.
It was fascinating. It was aninteresting choice. It was an odd choice.
And my wife, you know,who just is like Pat Kessler just
picked up Wolves Hoops two weeks ago. She said, who is that guy?
Goes? Well, he was kindof supposed to be like Anthony Edwards,
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you know, first round pick,lottery pick, but he kept getting
in trouble and he wasn't quite asreliable as Aunt has. God, No,
it was kind of my explanation.No, it didn't work out quite
that way. No, I don'tthink ant's gone frozen pipes yet, missing
practice or not yet. No,so the text are already coming in.
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In a week we'll all be talking. All we'll be talking about is twins
pitching was in rookie camp the wayit always always has been. Maybe it's
possible seven six, guy, butyou're missing the point badly. Could I
have declared it any more clearly?Whatever happens in game seven to against the
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defending world champions there if you reducethis to same old Wolves, no,
this isn't the same old Wolves.This is different. That doesn't mean every
year you're gonna win a title.We talked about the path. Rarely do
teams in their first year in theplayoffs, or their second year in the
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playoff, or their first year ofwinning a series, win the whole thing.
What you're looking for are signs thatthis is the start of establishing a
beachhead that is different. Last nightwas different. There's no Wolves team that
has ever been able to accomplish anythingas absurd as what they did last night.
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Again, I get it, it'sonly worth one game. I I
you can say, well, itlooks like Dan's giving them a commemorative print,
maybe for the for the entire seasonin postseason, I probably will.
But that's the I know it's theitch we got to scratch. I know
it can't help ourselves. But thereare a million differences we've laid them out
and reasons to think that this shouldbe some the start. This should just
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be the start of something in whichwe are playing regularly in May and maybe
perish the thought. Maybe we'll neverget to gymp as possible. And then
if you go, this isn't difficult. If you get to the conference finals
and lose four straight years, we'llget we'll get pissed about it. What
the hell win will that win atitle. Well, we're not there yet,
right, No, we're not quitethere yet. The fanom big deck
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dot com. I want to giveyou a chance to put a grand in
your hand with our national cash contestin the first keyword of the afternoon is
bills. Go to k fa Ndot com and enter the keyword Bills Fan
sixty four forty two. Timber Wolvesby twenty two d they've been up past
ninety is twenty four. It's aDenverer turnover. Then the Wolves on the
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move, right side a thought saddlepop three dribbles in. Look how he
flames in for two Anthony Edwards upto twenty one points to lead up to
twenty four time out Denver sixty sixforty two. The Wolves off go to
impressive start here the third Dan withtwenty one. I've got some bulletin board
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material for the Wolves. I don'tknow how to get it to them,
and I don't know if they've yetbeen made aware of it. There is,
Well, maybe I'll save it.I'm gonna save it. Were we're
we're chock full with an outstanding guestlineup today. Sam Mitchell's schedule for about
three thirty five he's gonna get inhis car to go to the studios for
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NBA TV duty tonight. So hesays, I get my car at three
thirty our time, four to thirtyhis time Eastern. And so he said,
call me, I can start atyour time three thirty five. That's
the plan. Bonis Johnny Athletic isscheduled for four h two. Ben Gesling
with leftover Vikings material on the scheduleat four point thirty. Lavelle at five
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point thirty. I'm trying to wedgeRick Bosech in because the PGA controversy.
I'm still working on times because thatmight get more complicated as well. Do
I save it or not? Ithink I will because I want to make
sure I get to one other significantpoint. We can get into the game
of a lot of what people alreadysay, Well, how can you say
Cat's the key player? It's gotto be Jaden McDaniels. We saw the
X factor he is. The truthis, there's no one thing. But
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if we buy the notion that theDenver Nuggets have the best player in basketball,
one would assume that an ability toat least lesson some of the lethality
that's in his offensive game is prettycrucial to winning that. I would say
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the player you have assigned, theplayer you believe gives you the best chance
to do that. Being available hasto be at the top of the list.
And it's not even closed. Afterthe game. Anthony Edwards was asked
the question is the question in herejust his answer? Just his answer,
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but his response is directly to thatquestion. Kay about the question was I
think it was Fitzy Senior And thequestion was what did you think of,
you know, putting Cat, themove to put Cat on Joker? And
the answer Edwards is great postgame whenhe's in the flow because he just goes.
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He doesn't really care about censors,he doesn't care about how he's supposed
to couch stuff. He doesn't reallyhave a lot of filters and now occasionally
that's going to get him in trouble, but sometimes it also allows him to
crystallize things very directly. And Iwant you to listen to how Edwards answered
that particular question. He's been growingthem the whole series. Yeah, he's
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been doing an outstanding job the wholeseries. Yeah, that's always been a
matchup every time we come out.Cat is on Yoki. So it wasn't
new today. I think the mainthing today was his ad stayed out of
foul trouble. Like I told himin the FeNiS series, that was all
that was. Yeah, I meanI cussed him out. I cussed him
out every chance I get. Brostopped filing, Like I think you guys
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see it, like if Kat don'tfile, we pretty much can win the
game every time. And tonight,I mean he had three files, but
he did. He only had three. He didn't have five. So I
told him today like if you ifit were thankful that you didn't file,
because if you don't, if youif you filed, we lose because you're
the best matchup we got for Yokic, Like you do the best job on
him, you know what I mean. We come to double, but you
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do the best job standing up hisfirst dribble, and he did that to
night Man. He only took tenshots. We counted on him making the
right play. This morning. Wewas all on him, like, Bro,
you got to make the right play. We're gonna play off of you
in the pot like they have nomatchup, and he did our standing job
of just making that easy pass.And when they don't double, he was
aggressive and yeah, my cat playedgreat tonight on both sides of the ball.
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It's the bumper to bumper seal ofapproval. He's twenty two years old,
already one of the best players inthe league, and he's already a
great analyst. Because in all honesty, it starts there. McDaniels obviously matters
when he plays. Like last night, Anthony talked about that Mike Conley being
available again to bring order and peaceand a sense of calm back to the
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offense, allowing also Anthony Edwards thento not get double team diseasily because they're
Conley's good at not only moving theball, spreading the court. Sam Mitchell
is going to talk about a couplewrinkles he saw in that regard as well.
So all these things work together.There's never any one thing, but
it absolutely starts. Look, theyplayed six games against Denver. The greatest
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player in the world has looked fairlyaverage to slightly better than average in three
of them. Three of six,it's pretty good Draymond, which is pretty
good exactly. Yeah, we haveat least maybe twenty four hours where the
Rudy Gobert slander campaign is at leastsuspended until they lose Game seven and Joker
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goes nuts again. But that willtell you that what is that based on.
It's based on a belief that whateveryou want to say about Rudy,
Kat has a better base, abetter body built a little differently to make
him the primary defender, and Gobertis better as a helper. He was
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on him a couple times and switchesEarly actually made a couple of nice defensive
plays where he contested shots nicely onthe baseline. Ye, the baseline,
you were near so. But butthat's where this whole thing starts. Is
it realistic to expect you can dothat four games out of seven? That
Joe Graham might not be But youronly chance of continuing it is Karl Anthony
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Towns for two consecutive games being smartabout the files he commits. And you
you heard it from a teammate.Forget me. You heard it from a
teammate who said it's it's this isthe deal. You got three files.
You're not in constant foul trouble.We don't have to keep taking you off
of him to sit for an extrafive minutes or even if you are going
to stay in the game, say, we can't keep them on him because
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he's one file away from we're goingto not even have him available in the
second half. So that's I don'tknow how many days we've talked about this
since the last game, but howessential that part of this thing was.
And I think there I would viewKat ended up with three files and I
thought, first half, yeah,and I thought one of them was an
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eye roller where you go waw.The other two I can you know,
you can even argue about whether theywere good calls, but there was only
one where you're slacked, you know, smacking your head with your hand,
going what are you doing with that? What's the point? That's not going
to be helpful? So can hedo that two straight games? I don't
know. I mean, he's hadthat's been one of the issues he's had
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in the past. But the matterof fact way, to me, it
was almost like I don't even knowif Aunt was aware of all the stuff
that's been going on TNT ripping Rudy, but it was almost to me implied
like, well, if people thinkthat we've intended or you know, we've
had Rudy on him the whole series, we really haven't, or we haven't
wanted to, because the best approachfor us defensively is with cats. So
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it isn't new for us to putcat on him. We were just able
to keep him on the big guylonger because he finished the game with three
foules. Yeah, people that aresaying it's a big adjustment are telling on
themselves that they had which is fine. That's okay, it's fine. Nobody's
perfect. Here's the conspiracy, here'sthe Baltimore material. Potentially, I'm hearing
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a lot of this today. Well, it shouldn't work this way, but
deep down embedded in the heads ofthe players, the Denver players is they
know they've got Game seven at home. So the implication is the Wolves played
well, but Denver, how oncethey saw kind of where it was going,
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they basically said, forget it.We know we're going back home for
game seven. So the implication isthey really weren't even trying to counter the
battle. They weren't really even tryingto join the battle that much. Now
that's a bit insulting to the Wolf. It may end up being there may
be some truth to it, butto me, the message. There was
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much discussion about the video montage beforethe game that allegedly inspired the wolves as
well. Of course, we neverwe only hear about these things after you
win. We never hear about themafter you lose. But the the to
me, if the Finci's message wouldbe, if he gets a hold of
this is hey, if that's whatsome people are saying, so guess what
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they wanted it. They wanted it. Let's make them pay. Let's make
them pay both games they thought.Denver apparently thinks, ah, we're cool,
we know what we are. We'llgo back home where we and to
me, that's the speech. Thespeech is, let's make him regret that
decision to sort of bow out ofgame six early, like we didn't have
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anything to worry about. Right,That's that's where you go with. That's
what you go with. You're lookingfor the game seven smoke, We're going
to give it to you. Thesmoke is coming back to Denver, and
it ain't the Canadian wildfires. It'sa Minnesota timber one. When was the
last time we've been happy thrilled witha Karl Anthony Towns game in which he
scored ten points. I'd have tolook back at the box score, but
he played a hell of a gamea hell of a game, both sides,
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both sides. It didn't And again, if McDaniels doesn't get twenty,
he was a twenty two twenty three. Maybe we're looking at the at the
cat number a little differently, butthe fact is he gave him what they
needed within the ball game, withinthe flow of an offense that was much
more free flowing yep, that ithad been than had been previously. As
as well one turnover in zero offensivefiles for Carl two. That's the other
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one's right because when they play throughhim, you always get a little nervous
that he's gonna like game what fivein game four? Yeah, definitely five,
tive. You know we had threestraight charges and not him but the
team. Yes, just driving inaimlessly. He was very composed and that's
what Ant talked about. In thePhoenix series two. He had another great
rant with Kat on the Dais withthem basically saying they don't have a matchup
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for you. You have to stayon the floor, and then Carl said
something like I'm trying to play defensetoo, and he's like, stop bleeping
fouling. It was brilliant. Imean, so he's the he's the twenty
two year old exactly, basically tellingthe twenty nine what No, how old
is he twenty nine? He's inhis ninth year. I don't know what
his age is, but he's ayou know, upper twenties. That's the
irony of it. It's the twentythree years because they need him. They
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either need him offensively defensively. Yes, you need him in both correct But
last night, this series specifically,and really last series too, because he
guarded Durant. I mean that's thething he's doing. He should be getting
nothing but like the anti go beartreatment because of the assignments he's taking on
to make this whole thing work.If he keeps himself out of foul trouble,
it's outstanding. We'll come back andcheck in with sam Mitchell, who
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had us winning the whole title thathe wasn't so sure. Is he back
in the bandwagon? I don't know. But what did he see last night?
What from his perspective as a formerNBA Coach of the Year did he
notice Regarding that key question we askedfrom Finchy. Finchy, how about some
adjustments. You've lost three in arow. I think sam Mitchell thinks he
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saw some finally last night, theanswer to the adjustments that, of course,
the Denver Nuggets staff and their headcoach mister Malone had made after the
first two games. Tottley off togo, Bear Street act to Rudy,
He'll kick you out. Hand's open, right side, he takes the three,
Who's to his left? Extra pass, Towns up top straight away.
Three missed that long ant teft therebound. Now Kat gets ahead to it.
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Cottley's open edwards at the quarter.Texas to the great big do They
missed it initially, but the Wolvesstuck with it and cat like the extra
pass and the bucket. Eighteen tonine. That's a six ton oh temper
Wolves run. Alan Horton, voiceof the Wolves, right here on the
fan last night, as the destructionwas on of the Denver Bronc. Let's
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say Denver Bronco was Denver Nuggets ingame number six. Sam Mitchell is on
his way, I think to someNBA TV duties tonight, kind of enough
to join us via the Connecticut WaterSystems hotline in his car. Are you
it is NBA TV duty for youthis evening? Correct? Absolutely, big
night, Big Knight, who's sotonight's Nick's Pacers. Yep, that's only
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game that's on to night, thosetwo. That's big. All right,
let's get to what you saw lastnight. I called you about I think
one o'clock your time to yell atyou, because I said you'd given up
on this Wolves club. But yousaw right away you said we had You
know, I had talked and we'vetalked a lot on the air separately about
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all right, Denver made some bigtime adjustments after the first two games.
We're looking for the sort of returnsalvo, and you think, finally,
you know, after the last threegames, you saw some of that last
night. What did you see youthought the Wolves did differently that that also
get help their chances to win Gamesix. Well, I think two things
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they did. They dispelled that mytchyou know, me and my radio partner
Brian Gessler, and that we argueall the time because he's a firm believer
that the best way to guard thejoker is to play him straight up and
live and bust you for forty Butmy argument is, Okay, I get
what you're saying. Then that way, he doesn't get twelve assists, but
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he's still gonna get the rebounds,And the problem is when he gets forty,
he does it so efficiently. Hedoes it on twenty shots. So
you can't let a guy go seventeenor fifteen for twenty and think you're gonna
win. Now, if he wentfifteen for thirty five to get forty,
that would be different, but fifteenfor twenty, no, you can't recover
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from that. So I think,what the Wolves here? Two things.
They came up with a great schemeto trap him. They decided who they
were gonna leave open and do theirbest to get to him. They did
a great job of doing that.And then offensively they ran some sets that
really put Denver in a tough spot. And I want to give a shout
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out to call after the Towns becauseI know it's tough. Call this the
type of player when he looks onthe court, he sees a mismatch.
You got a bigger guy on him, he's gonna take him outside and drive
by him. A smaller guy he'sgonna post him up. But in this
game, game six, he waspatient, he was deliberate. When they
trapped him. He made the rightread out of the trap. He didn't
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try to make a scoring pass.He threw it right back to Anthony Edwards,
which is gonna make put Denver infull rotation and then get it.
To Wol's credit, not only didthey knock down shots, but when Denver
chased them off that three point line, they got inside the paint and they
scored. So I just think ChrisFinchin and Michael Nor their coaching staff,
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they did a great job of adjustments. And I think that same game plan
that they used for Game six,I think a lot of that they're gonna
have to use in Game seven becausethey're gonna have to get the ball out
the joker hand. They're gonna haveto rotate to the shooters. But you
gotta decide who you gonna make beatyou. If it's gonna be Aaron Goring
and Braun and guys like that.In KSEP, that's what you got to
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do. But I would not liftMichael Porter Jr. And some of them
others beat me from the three pointline. So I liked it adjustment both
defensively and yeah, great points.And they they also I think when they
sent doubles they recovered better in thisgame as well. They tended to there
were less times where you go aguy that's somebody wide open under for a
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layup or a dunk. They didall that very well. And and on
to your point on Kat, weplayed a SoundBite earlier from uh, you
know, I was at the pressconferences after the game from Anthony who just
he you know, he has away of sort of simplifying things because he
doesn't have a filter, and hejust said, look, Kat's the guy
we've wanted on Joker the whole series, and we would have him on him
the whole series if he'd stay outof bleep and fall trouble. And I
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told him stop and following, andhe did that in that game. He
only had three And and you know, I'm bringing this up in part because
I'm curious to get you know,you you're on You're on national shows,
and so you're connected to a lotof these guys. And I got to
tell you, I thought the slander, especially from Dream on Rudy for two
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straight nights on that set was embarrassingbecause I'm not saying he couldn't have played
better, But you know what,I know that their defense is better with
Rudy as the roamer. And Draymondalso knows this. Sam that guy that
he's the best player in the world. He does that to everybody, including
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Draymond, and it was like thishatred of Rudy I think superseded any ability
to actually analyze fairly what was goingon in that series. And that kind
of bugs me. Did it bugyou at all? Well? I work
in the building as a matter offact, with Draymond and all those guys
that was in there one night withhim, and it comes down to people,
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person opinion. Everybody got a reasonwhy they say what they want to
say, right, whether it's personal, whether it's objective. But I don't
think yours personal, That's what I'msaying. I don't think you're I don't
think yours. I think you tryto rise above the person and I think
sometimes like with and it can't bepersonal because when I'm talking about players,
I don't you. I may havehad a bad experience coaching a guy or
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playing against the guy or whatever,but that's not what you're asking me about.
My job is to tell you whatI see and not Again to your
point, that's nobody can guard theJoker one on one, nobody. But
you look at what the way Rudehas done guarding other people and from that
weak side position, and I thinkthat's been a key And yeah, it
has been you know a lot oftimes when Draymond is saying this stuff.
(31:32):
I'm on the air at NBA TV, so I don't necessarily here to see
it. I get it the nextday when I watch the replay. But
it's unfortunate. But that's something yougot to take up with the people.
A turner, Yeah, that's notI know, it's not your problem.
Well my pay grade, Yeah,well it's not. And look like you
know me, I'm a big opinionguy. He has a right. And
then one thing we do have,we do have an issue sometimes NBA TV
(31:55):
because I think guys, I thinksometimes they make their critique sound more personal.
They're more objective about basketball, andthere are times when we do have
a hard time, have a difficulttime getting guys on air with us because
they take it, you know,players take stuff personal. Yeah that's a
great point. And I think tome, part of this, and it's
(32:15):
a larger issue for another day,is that it's I think it's the danger
of putting active players on that exactly, because that's where it can get funky
about you know, battles they've had, and and because Draymont is bitter,
among other things, that he didn'thave as many. You know that Rudy's
got four defensive Player of the Earwards. I think that's a big part of
(32:36):
it. Unfortunately, Well think aboutit from this standpoint. If you're if
what if someone plays these comments backto ru to Gobert, I don't know,
two or three days or a weekbefore they play Golden State next year,
what may happen? Yeah, yeah, right, that's a good point.
So we'll see. Now, that'dbe great for us to give us
something to talk about, but Idon't think it'd be good for the league
and for the players. I thinkI think we all in the national media
(33:00):
should make our comment. It shouldnever sound personal. It should be about
what we're seeing on the floor.So one hundred percent. So let me
get into a couple of other areas. Because there is a game seven,
as you know now, on Sundayfor the for the Wolves. In the
three games the Wolves have won,Murray has shot a combined thirteen for fifty
(33:21):
That includes a four for eighteen Ithink that was last night and a three
for eighteen. So what is thatis that what does that tell you,
Dad, Once I'm asking you whoyou gotta guard to win? Yeah,
exactly. You gotta slow him down, you got yeah, because the Joker's
gonna get his And what it tellsyou is that even if Michael Porter Junior
and Aaron going to have good games, they're not gonna beat you. The
(33:43):
two guys that are gonna beat youis Jamal Murray and the Joker. Why
Jamal Burry is gonna have the ballin his hand in the gusts of the
game in the fourth quarter, He'seither gonna make the pass or make the
shot, and he's gonna be involvedin the high screening row. That's why
this's imperative when they go to thathigh screening rod that you're gonna have to
get the ball out of his hands. You're gonna have to rotate to the
(34:05):
Joker, and then you're gonna haveto take the chances. But the one
thing you cannot do, Please don'tleave Eric Gordon under the basket. You
can't do that. You're gonna haveto You're gonna have to anticipate where the
past is going. And I'm goingto say this to Dan and for the
casual listener, and basketball fan theywon't understand this, but you know,
(34:27):
as a defense, you can dictatewhere you want that ball to go out
of a trap. It's who youchoose to leave open. So you can
dictate and pre rotate where you wantthat ball to go. The question is
can't you get dare in time whenyou do that? So one of the
things I heard a lot nationally,not a lot, but some today in
reaction to the game was that humannature being what it is, Denver knew
(34:52):
it had a home Game seven inits back pocket and that maybe to that
extent they let go of the proverbialrole a little quicker. Is that fair?
Is that unfair to the Wolves interms of how well they played?
Or do you think deep down that'shad something to do with just I mean,
this was this was a historic onesided game here, you know,
(35:13):
in terms of elimination question, commonsense question, who's got all the pressure
on them? Now? But thegame seven don't team? That's true,
The trimber Wolves had it last night, the home team. Why Denver's expected
to win. They got Game sevenat home. Regardless of how the series
it being, they got Game sevenat home. So all the pressures on
Denver. All the Wolves got todo is go in there and play relax
(35:36):
and play hard and stay focused andexecute that game plan. The pressures on
Denver. They're the team that ifyou get them down, they're gonna have
to press You know, Mike Maloneis going to be more animated, He's
going to be pushing, especially aftera forty five point loss. So if
I'm Minnesota, We're gonna go inWe're gonna have a game plan, We're
gonna be focused. The number onething we can't do and got to understand
(35:59):
you're not gonna in the game inthe first quarter. If that was the
case, he Worlds would have lost. Denver jumped out what nine too correct?
Timber Wolves call the time out andthey say, you know they going
to epic run because at that nineto two outs in they're like, oh
my god, I know it's thatthe Wolves are not gonna go out like
this. And all of a suddenthey flip the switch and they look how
(36:19):
they righted the ship. So Ijust think, man, they got They've
won two games on that floor outof six. They know they can go
in that building and win. Butthe key is can you control Jamal Murray.
If they ConTroll Jamal Murray, they'llgive them an excellent chance to win
the game. Yeah. I reallydo think those numbers back up that that
very point. That's why I broughtthem up once again. And what do
(36:42):
you think is gonna happen? JamalMurray is gonna be really aggressive in games
because he reading the stack, he'slistening, he understands it. But what
you gotta do. You gotta makehim feel you. And I think the
timer Wolves got to look if theyrun their offense the way they did in
Game six, going to have anextra tance because again, the more times
you can get Jamal Murray, youknow, switched out on a Carl Anthony
(37:06):
Towns or Rue de Gobert where he'sgot to try to get physical to hold
his ground, it only going tohelp you. Yeah, no question.
So you played in the league along time and one of the traps that's
easy to fall into is you seea game in which the Wolves dominate to
the degree they did is and youassume that means, well, it'll carry
over. But nothing's carried over inthis series. In fact, I guess
(37:30):
Game one was the closest game reasonablyclose, with like four minutes ago.
The rest of them have all beenblowout so no Wolves fan can assume though
I don't believe that. Well,I mean, I see how they dominated
Denver in Game six. That theoverreaction to the performance in any single game
is a trap that many of us, even though we know better, sometimes
(37:53):
fall into. Right And you can'tbecause I would argue Game seven might not
look anything like Game six unless,as you say, the Wolves do two
or three of the same things thatthey did in Game six, it won't
matter. You'll have the big blowoutwin, but it won't win the series
for you. Well you know then, whether you win by one of forty
(38:15):
five a wins of winning, andit's all about winning. Get to the
next game. But I think again, the pressure is going to be on
different. You know, they laythe egg in game six and it's your
Minnesota. Just come out and play. Just be smart, take care of
the ball to limit the second shots, and run your offense. Make Denver
play into full rotation, and keepone thing in your back pocket. The
(38:38):
Denver Nuggets do not want to seea high screen and row with Anthony Elverson,
call it Anthon Town. Why becausethey can't stop Anthony edvers from getting
downhill. They after that was agun downhill every time, and Mike Malone
knows that. So play to yourstrengths, keep attacking this team, Just
keep moving the ball. I thinkwhen the Timberwolves to me, when they
(39:00):
make five or six passes, that'swhen they really put Denver in a tough
position because that means Denver and fora rotation and they're slow getting there at
times? Do they have to havethe same Jaden McDaniel's offensively that they got
in Game six to win? Well, Dan, every team does. Think
(39:21):
about it. If Carl does whathe does, if Anthony does what he
does, who's gonna be your thirdguy? The same thing for Denver.
Not only do they you see theylose with Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Julie
don't have a good game. It'sthe same thing, man, Your others
got to step up. So thequestion is what others for Denver and what
others for Minnesota is gonna step up? Because we assume that Anthony was the
(39:43):
Carl Anton Towns, Jamal Murray andthe joke are gonna do what they do,
But who's gonna be the others?Think about it? When Denver has
won, it's been Aaron Gordon,that's the other. When Minnesota has one,
it's been what's his name? Youjust missed it now I'm going that
excuse. Yeah, that's so it'sgonna come down to those guys. Uh.
(40:05):
By the way, I was alsotold that one of the other adjustments
that the Wolves made is on theon the Aaron on the on the Gordon
when they run, because they theystarted running more Joker, Aaron Gordon picking
rolls to force Rudy in the switchto end up on Joker, which is
what they prefer. And that whatthe Wolves adjusted to yesterday was that Rudy
(40:30):
was dropping more than he had previouslyon those actions, and that made it
a little easier for Kat to notswitch, to be able to follow Joker.
It's subtle stuff, but in theend, the numbers just back it
up with with with Kat as theprimary defender. They did send other people
at him some, but as theprimary defender, he just seems to have
(40:52):
a better body. I don't knowif it says he's built differently to bother
to the degree that anybody can botherJoker, to bother him a little bit
more than Rudy does well. Dad, This is what big guys and post
players defenders have to understand. Youknow. Flip used to make me guard
a Keem and karme alone all thoseguys. You know, he's not saying
(41:12):
I did a good job, buthe made me do it. But the
one thing I learned over the years, when you're guarding big physical guys in
the posts of the good, youcan't let them feel you. You got
to bump them early to try toget them off their spot. But if
you stand there and just stand behindthem and push and shove, they're going
to use your body weight and positionhim to spind off you. And that's
what Rudy does. He lets theJoker gets to his body. Carr does
(41:37):
bends to arm and try to keepsome distance, because when you make a
guy, if he can't feel you, he don't know how to spend Think
about it. Big guys love contact, and the less contact you give him,
the hard it is forming the score. So I think Carl does a
better job of giving up his bodyand not letting the Joker feel where he's
at, rather than with Rudy soearly. What are you looking for if
(42:00):
you're a Wolves fan, and you'rehopeful that, hey, why not us,
Why can't we finish this thing offhere in Denver? What do they
need to see? What do youneed to see to feel encouraged that you
know they've got a shot to pullthis thing off in game seven? Oh,
I think it's going at halftime.If the game is tight, then
the world's gonna have a good chance. You know, they can't be down
(42:22):
fifteen to eighteen yep, because yougot to extend so much energy to get
back to where you may not haveanything left to tank. I think they
got to be ready to come out, and they got to try to throw
the first punch on the road.I know it's hard to do, but
they got to put Denver on theirheels. You know, they got to
try to throw the first punch.Attack them, be aggressive, come at
(42:43):
them often. Key again, keeprunning your offense, keep forcing Denver to
switch and get the matchups that youwon't And you do that by being patient
and moving to basketball. I thinkif the Wolves can do that, they
have a good chance survive the initibaraUS and going to win the game last
night. You know, as you'rewell aware, because they brought you back,
(43:05):
the Wolves keep bringing people back tothe Target Center for games. Last
night, among those announcers Gorgy GorgyJang, a name you're familiar with for
more recent vintage. And then itwas Tom Googliata and your guy himself,
the guy you vouched for so manytimes, Isaiah Junior j R. J
Writer as well, you got yougot any? You got any JR.
(43:29):
Writer stories to tell us that,I mean, not even that I really
want to say, because they oweat the end it was some violence included.
Well that's not good. That's definitelygood. Either some arguments or something
crazy. Look. Uh, Inever had anything personal right against j R.
(43:50):
We were just at different stages ofour career. Myf period poor or
some of us. We were older, JR was younger, and I think
JR. Would be one of thefirst to admit that at that time of
his career his level of a professionalismneeded a little bit of work, need
a little bit more work. AndI'll leave it at that, you know,
I look, man, we allgrowing, we all changed. But
(44:14):
n I never really had an issuefor sale on a personal level with JR.
I respected him as a player,and I respected his talent, and
I think sometimes JR. Should lookat Anthony Edwards and kick himself because you
can't tell me JR. Ryder didn'thave the same athletic ability, the same
shooting ability, the ability that hadthe ball. He had all the same
(44:37):
athletic abilities that the Anthony Edwards.He just didn't use them the same way
this young man is using them.Because Jr. Right had the talent to
be an all star great player,very very well stated, for sure.
It just seemed like at that timewe had had guys in the league trying
to pretend to be something that therewasn't instead of being the best basketball player
(45:01):
they could be. Yeah, Ithink the different with it was is all
he wants to do is be thebest basketball player he could be, not
something else. You know, backbeing looking at all the guys in the
league, there was trying to berappers and this and dad and like,
dude, why don't you just focuson being a basketball player. The knucklehead
factor, I think is what wecalled it back in the day to try
(45:22):
to put kind There's there's different words, but knucklehead's probably better. Uh and
not quite as as vicious. That'syour word, yeah, my word,
Yeah, that's my word. Knuckleheadis my word. Okay, Lastly,
what do you think it would meanto this franchise if they were able to
pull off a victory in Game sevenin Denver and advance for the first time
(45:44):
in twenty years the conference finals.Well, Dan, I mean, it's
obviously we're being everybody be excited becauseagain, you get back to a conference
finalist. You've only been to awas been to NBA Finals one. No,
they haven't not one the mental conferencefinals once and it'll get you one
step closer to the NBA Finals somethingthat. But you have to remind yourself
(46:06):
and remember the Wolves have been thebest defensive team all year. They've been
one of the top teams in theWestern Conference all year. So we shouldn't
be surprised, right yep, athow well they're playing. And they got
two legit All Stars on that team, carl Anthon Donalds and that necklace,
So we shouldn't be surprised at whatthe Wolves are doing. Now. They
(46:27):
don't have the experience that some ofthese other teams have, but that's okay.
If we found out in this playoffs, you know, yep, the
teams that's ready to play going tohave the best hands to win. So
I think what the Wolves that feellike, man, give them the chance
to get to the Western Conference Finals. It makes you one of four teams
they can win the NBA Championship.You're gonna talk a lot tonight on NBA
(46:47):
TV obviously about Game six Pacers andKnicks, because that would force a Game
seven. There'd be two Game sevenson Sunday if the Pacers can win.
I assume you saw or heard theRick Carlisle audio when reporters have basically asked,
Okay, you know what we whatdo you? You know? What
does your team need to do?What is your best player need to do?
(47:08):
And every other it was like expletivefilled everywhere. Other word was just
bleeping rebound, just bleep and tryhard, Just bleep and play. It's
been kind of interesting. Do hearRick Carlisle go from moaning about the officials
to moaning more about his own team'seffort and rather refreshing Well, then,
look, I'm not in that lockerroom, but I tell you this.
(47:31):
I think at this stage of theplayoffs, you know you may beat me,
but it would be concerned to meas a player. As a coach,
you could say a lot of thingsabout me, but one thing you
could never say. Don't question myeffort. Don't question what I'm coming out.
They're playing hard now. I maybe playing like a dog, I
may be playing bad, yeah,but my effort is going to always be
(47:53):
there. This is the playoffs,man. You know, at this stage
you're not playing for money. Ihope people really the playoff shares and the
playoff bonuses at this stage it's peanutscompared to what playoffs make today, right,
and that money gets taxed. Hardplayers are not playing for money at
this dage. You're playing for thatring man, You're playing for that pride.
(48:14):
You're planning to say we were thebest in twenty twenty four. That's
what you're playing for. So Ithink as a coach, if you're questioning
your team's effort and how hard theyplayed at this stage, I would be
concerned. Yeah. Yeah, that'sa very fair point because it's a little
late right now. I mean,I mean, if you're not playing hard
(48:36):
now now, are you going toplay hard? No? It's not.
I mean think about it. Well, it's an indictment. It's an indictment
of either the players or the coach. You could say it's like, well,
that's sort of part of the job, right, Well, Dan,
I think sometimes and sometimes coaches,you know, get get confused with playing
hard to when you get beat.Sometimes you get your ass beat and you
(48:57):
played hard. You know, it'snot that every time we get beet,
we didn't play hard, right,you know? I hate when coaches stand
up and all they screamed during thegame and played harder. Well, Dann,
it won't you call a time outto give us some adjustments? Do
that. I'm playing hard, They'rejust playing better. I remember one night,
Damn, I'm not gonna call thecoach name, but this team was
(49:17):
kicking our but in high screen role. I think it was Kevin Johnson and
Tom Tambers, and I think Teenyshas seventy two points at halftime, and
then Tom Tamors and Kevin Johnson betweenthe matter had sixty of the seventy two,
all in the high screening road.And the coach at the time,
and it wasn't Flip came in screamingabout and wrote physical college till on the
(49:42):
board and this kind of like westood up like a choir, physical college
till my ass tell us how wegonna guard that damn pitch and Road and
the physical man. They wunna takea roll on us. How we gonna
guard it? Tell her to giveus something to do about that, and
at that point that coach loss usin the locker room. That's a great
point because at that point we knewit had nothing to do with playing hard.
(50:06):
It had nothing to do with beingphysical. They were running the play
and the way we were defending itdidn't work, obviously, because they have
seventy two points. And instead ofgiving us an alternate, an alternative way
of playing it, all you're goingto do is come in and basically say,
well, they're doing this because y'allain't playing hard. And what the
coach tim realize is an insult toa pro, the talent professional. He's
(50:30):
not playing hard. Day. Thinkabout how you would feel if your producer
or director, whoever you was,your bunk came it to your show and
told you you're not prepared. Yeah, and then but then the pay yeah,
and then didn't explain what do youmean by that? You got to
give it. You're looking for specifics, is what you're saying. You look
(50:52):
for, Give me something if I'mnot playing hard, Tell me how you
got to show me because just aplayoffs, I'm playing and it's hard.
I'm locked in now. I promiseyou didn't we played hard last night.
I promise you ain't. This Minnesotais not that Minnesota played harder. Minnesota
played better. That's it. That'sit. I guarantee you. You go
(51:16):
to you. You're telling me JamalBurray wasn't trying last night. The joker
wasn't trying. No, you're tellingme anthat was when they got beat those
those three games in the row.They didn't try. And one thing I
respect about Chris Chris Finch when theylost those three games, did he ever
(51:36):
come in the locker room and say, well we lost because we didn't try
hard tonight, we didn't play hard. No, No, his decision makes
They executed us right exactly. Everybody'splaying hard. It's the team that's gonna
take the game plan and make theadjustments and execute the bed and oh,
by the way, to make ashot. We'll leave it at that.
(52:01):
We appreciate the time. As always, we'll talk. Let's make the next
date to conference finals. Hey man, let's do it. Thanks Sam,
have a good broadcast tonight. We'llbe watching. Thank you be good.
That is Sam Mitchell NBA TV tonight. He's also on Serious XM over the
weekends the NBA channel there as well. H Top of the Hour pause will
(52:23):
be followed by a visit bonus visitwith Johnny Athletic, who is I'm sure
on his way to Denver. Uh, he'll be there. He wouldn't miss
a Game seven. We'll get tosome reaction via the text line as well.
Ben Gesling yet to come, RickBozic on a PGA controversy that he
might think is a bit overblown.We'll see, and before we're don Lavelle
(52:45):
e Neil. The third full show, the rest
They're finding a way and they're gonnawin tonight. See it. They got
this ninety six minutes left. They'regonna win these forty eight. This series
is there's too many j Minnesota isbetter than the nugget get them. You
(00:36):
don't show us what you can do. We gotta that away, and so
long today, father should up.We don't need today. I don't know,
I don't know, and so yeah, my son's in trouble. Name
(01:00):
com e Fladaway honest Tuesday BUSSYRD,a night that seemed to have nothing to
(01:21):
do with the past. Leader FanFan Radio Network and k fa N dot
com. One minute thirty two secondspast three o'clock Central daylight time, Welcome
to the Bumper to Bumper Program onan absolutely beautiful Friday afternoon here in the
(01:44):
twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. My name is Dan Barrero. I
host the program, guards he producers, and we are delighted that you are
along for what should be a nottoo bumpy ride between now and six thirty
this evening. You're missing the Timberwolveslive for another day? Are you hungry?
(02:06):
Are you starving? There will be, As the fan has learned,
and most of you know a Gameseven sometimes Sunday afternoon or evening on What
we were reminded is Kevin Garnett's birthday. Yeah, and the anniversary year anniversary.
(02:28):
Then of the loading up the pumps, oozzies, all the joints with
silencers, the k comment heading intoGame seven Sacramento Kings again, and that
was to get to fan has learnedthe Conference finals, just as Game seven
(02:49):
Sunday in Denver will be to getto wow the Conference finals? Do we
have home ie advantage in uh againstLa? We did? We did,
actually we were number one see yep, but we got screwed by the not
the officials, but by the basketballguys. The Big Balls Dance. The
Big Balls Dance. The Big BallsDance ended what might have been a realistic
(03:09):
chance to preside over over a parade, a championship parade. Think about it.
I do a lot. I'm sureyou do more than you think.
Well, you almost have to becausewe've had so few other things to talk
about. But last night we hadsomething different to talk about. And as
we discussed on yesterday's show from theCage, I reached a point where I
(03:34):
was no longer attempting to make predictionson what might take what might transpire.
Now, Cheryl Reeve, you alreadyheard from her, the president of basketball
operations and head coach for the MinnesotaLinks, joined us from the cage yesterday.
She guaranteed victory. They're finding away and they're going to win tonight.
(03:54):
Is that they got this ninety sixminutes left, They're going to win
these forty eight. I guess myfollow up question should have been what about
the other forty eight? But I'msure she would have said, let's get
this forty eight first, Yeah,and then we'll get back to you.
We'll worry about that late. That'sexactly it. But Cheryl Reeve unequivocal in
her guarantee, and she looks likea genius because not only of course did
(04:17):
the Wolves win, they dominated ina way boys and girls, that has
rarely been done in the postseason inNBA history. Forget Wolve's history, NBA
history. There were times when Iwas looking around, like a lot of
people there and probably a lot ofpeople who are watching on TV, going,
what's going on here? What isthis? Can this be worth two
(04:41):
victories? Is there a way toget like two victories out of this,
and I know I heard it onthe way home that there were people saying,
if the commissioner had done his job, this series would already be over
because Jamal Murray would have indeed beensuspended for Game three this and it would
have been a rap already, andwe wouldn't have had to even worry about
(05:03):
the drama associated with a game numberseven out of the box. In the
blink of an eye, Wolves aredown nine to two, Minnesota nine two,
three minutes in. Again the game'stoo long to actually think, oh
(05:25):
my god, but you could feelit in the crowd because and I didn't
blame the crowd for thinking, ohmy god, even though there are a
million nine to two leads that earlyin a game that become meaningless. But
because of what had taken place theprevious three games, it was hard not
to couple it, put it all, connect it and say, oh god,
(05:46):
this this could be a long nighttonight. And it ended up being
a long night tonight. But itwas a long night for the other club.
The numbers speak for themselves. Threeminutes into the game. Over the
next forty one minutes, Minnesota outscoredthe Denver Nuggets. The world champion Denver
(06:10):
Nuggets by fifty seven points. Thatis a nice past. I mean,
that's not even Those are numbers youassociate with college games between you know,
powerful teams and hyphenated teams. Rightin December fifty se I had beat him
by fifty seven. Now, thefinal score wasn't that great, but it
was great enough. What was itforty five? Yes, but over those
(06:31):
forty one minutes it was one twelveto fifty five. And there was a
weird contradiction last night I think atTarget Center in that nothing of what took
place, Nothing of what took placelast night, regardless of whether the win,
the Wolves winn or lose on Sunday, reminded me of the past,
(06:55):
of particularly the Timberwolves past. Notthe way they guarded again, not the
way they led by Mike Conley,ran a professional offense. Again. Not
the way Jaden McDaniels grabbed the bowlby the testicles and took advantage of,
oh, we're going to put ourweakest defender on him because he done what's
(07:16):
he going to do? Offensively andmade Denver pay. Not the way the
Timberwolves kept the dufest factor low.Relatively few stupid fouls, especially by probably
you can argue the most important playerin this series starting with last night's game,
(07:44):
and for whatever happens in Game seven, Karl Anthony Towns, as in,
I'm not going to get in foultrouble tonight. Now there's a theory
that some of that had to dowith the way the refs called it,
and then you're back to, well, what are we going to expect from
the refs on Sunday? I don'tknow, But my point is everything they
did, the degree to which theydid it, the absurdity of the gap
(08:07):
in the game, and the performance, even though all does is ties it
up three to three, doesn't winyou. The series has nothing. And
this is the good part, boysand girls, nothing to do with the
Timberwolves past. You don't want tobe linked any longer to the Timberwolves past.
That's to me. The declaration thisteam, with this regular season and
(08:33):
even posting to this point, seemsto be proclaiming, pronouncing, And that's
why I had these weird, Idon't know, acid flashbacks when I look
up on the big screen and theyare announcing that in the first row baseline
(08:54):
opposite the Wolves, Well, Iguess you say, opposite the baseline near
where the wolves are. It's thereturn of Isaiah Junior Jr. J Ryder.
I care, I care man,and I'm going what are you doing?
I was puzzled, what are youdoing? I get it. It's
alumni. That's part of the traditionfor a lot of teams. We bring
(09:15):
people back. But at some pointit shouldn't be we just bring him back.
Everybody who played here, you shouldpick a choose. Isaiah jrj Rider
is a throwback, a link tothe most dysfunctional of Timberwol's days. This
team is the other side, especiallylast night, of this functional. So
unless they've got just a really good, perverse, puckish sense of humor at
(09:43):
six hundred First Avenue or one MaleClinic Square, whatever we call it these
days, why do no don't dothat? Maybe it was exercising the demons
one last time back. Yeah,you got to bring him back to fully
exercise Flip did with the incense?Did he pick up his uh? Was
he in his seats at game time? For? Was he late? Well?
(10:05):
I don't know if it's a goodquestion. I saw him leave at
one point and he's sitting next togoogleg Yeah, Tom Googliatov was there.
It was fascinating. It was aninteresting choice. It was an odd choice.
And my wife, you know,who just is like Pat Kessler just
picked up Wolves Hoops two weeks ago. She said, who is that guy?
Goes? Well, he was kindof supposed to be like Anthony Edwards,
(10:26):
you know, first round pick,lottery pick, but he kept getting
in trouble and he wasn't quite asreliable as Aunt has. God, No,
it was kind of my explanation.No, it didn't work out quite
that way. No, I don'tthink ant's gone frozen pipes yet, missing
practice or not yet. No,so the text are already coming in.
(10:50):
In a week we'll all be talking. All we'll be talking about is twins
pitching was in rookie camp the wayit always always has been. Maybe it's
possible seven six, guy, butyou're missing the point badly. Could I
have declared it any more clearly?Whatever happens in game seven to against the
(11:13):
defending world champions there if you reducethis to same old Wolves, no,
this isn't the same old Wolves.This is different. That doesn't mean every
year you're gonna win a title.We talked about the path. Rarely do
teams in their first year in theplayoffs, or their second year in the
(11:37):
playoff, or their first year ofwinning a series, win the whole thing.
What you're looking for are signs thatthis is the start of establishing a
beachhead that is different. Last nightwas different. There's no Wolves team that
has ever been able to accomplish anythingas absurd as what they did last night.
(11:58):
Again, I get it, it'sonly worth one game. I I
you can say, well, itlooks like Dan's giving them a commemorative print,
maybe for the for the entire seasonin postseason, I probably will.
But that's the I know it's theitch we got to scratch. I know
it can't help ourselves. But thereare a million differences we've laid them out
and reasons to think that this shouldbe some the start. This should just
(12:22):
be the start of something in whichwe are playing regularly in May and maybe
perish the thought. Maybe we'll neverget to gymp as possible. And then
if you go, this isn't difficult. If you get to the conference finals
and lose four straight years, we'llget we'll get pissed about it. What
the hell win will that win atitle. Well, we're not there yet,
right, No, we're not quitethere yet. The fanom big deck
(12:46):
dot com. I want to giveyou a chance to put a grand in
your hand with our national cash contestin the first keyword of the afternoon is
bills. Go to k fa Ndot com and enter the keyword Bills Fan
sixty four forty two. Timber Wolvesby twenty two d they've been up past
ninety is twenty four. It's aDenverer turnover. Then the Wolves on the
(13:07):
move, right side a thought saddlepop three dribbles in. Look how he
flames in for two Anthony Edwards upto twenty one points to lead up to
twenty four time out Denver sixty sixforty two. The Wolves off go to
impressive start here the third Dan withtwenty one. I've got some bulletin board
(13:28):
material for the Wolves. I don'tknow how to get it to them,
and I don't know if they've yetbeen made aware of it. There is,
Well, maybe I'll save it.I'm gonna save it. Were we're
we're chock full with an outstanding guestlineup today. Sam Mitchell's schedule for about
three thirty five he's gonna get inhis car to go to the studios for
(13:48):
NBA TV duty tonight. So hesays, I get my car at three
thirty our time, four to thirtyhis time Eastern. And so he said,
call me, I can start atyour time three thirty five. That's
the plan. Bonis Johnny Athletic isscheduled for four h two. Ben Gesling
with leftover Vikings material on the scheduleat four point thirty. Lavelle at five
(14:09):
point thirty. I'm trying to wedgeRick Bosech in because the PGA controversy.
I'm still working on times because thatmight get more complicated as well. Do
I save it or not? Ithink I will because I want to make
sure I get to one other significantpoint. We can get into the game
of a lot of what people alreadysay, Well, how can you say
Cat's the key player? It's gotto be Jaden McDaniels. We saw the
X factor he is. The truthis, there's no one thing. But
(14:35):
if we buy the notion that theDenver Nuggets have the best player in basketball,
one would assume that an ability toat least lesson some of the lethality
that's in his offensive game is prettycrucial to winning that. I would say
(15:00):
the player you have assigned, theplayer you believe gives you the best chance
to do that. Being available hasto be at the top of the list.
And it's not even closed. Afterthe game. Anthony Edwards was asked
the question is the question in herejust his answer? Just his answer,
(15:20):
but his response is directly to thatquestion. Kay about the question was I
think it was Fitzy Senior And thequestion was what did you think of,
you know, putting Cat, themove to put Cat on Joker? And
the answer Edwards is great postgame whenhe's in the flow because he just goes.
(15:41):
He doesn't really care about censors,he doesn't care about how he's supposed
to couch stuff. He doesn't reallyhave a lot of filters and now occasionally
that's going to get him in trouble, but sometimes it also allows him to
crystallize things very directly. And Iwant you to listen to how Edwards answered
that particular question. He's been growingthem the whole series. Yeah, he's
(16:03):
been doing an outstanding job the wholeseries. Yeah, that's always been a
matchup every time we come out.Cat is on Yoki. So it wasn't
new today. I think the mainthing today was his ad stayed out of
foul trouble. Like I told himin the FeNiS series, that was all
that was. Yeah, I meanI cussed him out. I cussed him
out every chance I get. Brostopped filing, Like I think you guys
(16:26):
see it, like if Kat don'tfile, we pretty much can win the
game every time. And tonight,I mean he had three files, but
he did. He only had three. He didn't have five. So I
told him today like if you ifit were thankful that you didn't file,
because if you don't, if youif you filed, we lose because you're
the best matchup we got for Yokic, Like you do the best job on
him, you know what I mean. We come to double, but you
(16:48):
do the best job standing up hisfirst dribble, and he did that to
night Man. He only took tenshots. We counted on him making the
right play. This morning. Wewas all on him, like, Bro,
you got to make the right play. We're gonna play off of you
in the pot like they have nomatchup, and he did our standing job
of just making that easy pass.And when they don't double, he was
aggressive and yeah, my cat playedgreat tonight on both sides of the ball.
(17:14):
It's the bumper to bumper seal ofapproval. He's twenty two years old,
already one of the best players inthe league, and he's already a
great analyst. Because in all honesty, it starts there. McDaniels obviously matters
when he plays. Like last night, Anthony talked about that Mike Conley being
available again to bring order and peaceand a sense of calm back to the
(17:41):
offense, allowing also Anthony Edwards thento not get double team diseasily because they're
Conley's good at not only moving theball, spreading the court. Sam Mitchell
is going to talk about a couplewrinkles he saw in that regard as well.
So all these things work together.There's never any one thing, but
it absolutely starts. Look, theyplayed six games against Denver. The greatest
(18:07):
player in the world has looked fairlyaverage to slightly better than average in three
of them. Three of six,it's pretty good Draymond, which is pretty
good exactly. Yeah, we haveat least maybe twenty four hours where the
Rudy Gobert slander campaign is at leastsuspended until they lose Game seven and Joker
(18:29):
goes nuts again. But that willtell you that what is that based on.
It's based on a belief that whateveryou want to say about Rudy,
Kat has a better base, abetter body built a little differently to make
him the primary defender, and Gobertis better as a helper. He was
(18:51):
on him a couple times and switchesEarly actually made a couple of nice defensive
plays where he contested shots nicely onthe baseline. Ye, the baseline,
you were near so. But butthat's where this whole thing starts. Is
it realistic to expect you can dothat four games out of seven? That
Joe Graham might not be But youronly chance of continuing it is Karl Anthony
(19:15):
Towns for two consecutive games being smartabout the files he commits. And you
you heard it from a teammate.Forget me. You heard it from a
teammate who said it's it's this isthe deal. You got three files.
You're not in constant foul trouble.We don't have to keep taking you off
of him to sit for an extrafive minutes or even if you are going
to stay in the game, say, we can't keep them on him because
(19:37):
he's one file away from we're goingto not even have him available in the
second half. So that's I don'tknow how many days we've talked about this
since the last game, but howessential that part of this thing was.
And I think there I would viewKat ended up with three files and I
thought, first half, yeah,and I thought one of them was an
(19:57):
eye roller where you go waw.The other two I can you know,
you can even argue about whether theywere good calls, but there was only
one where you're slacked, you know, smacking your head with your hand,
going what are you doing with that? What's the point? That's not going
to be helpful? So can hedo that two straight games? I don't
know. I mean, he's hadthat's been one of the issues he's had
(20:18):
in the past. But the matterof fact way, to me, it
was almost like I don't even knowif Aunt was aware of all the stuff
that's been going on TNT ripping Rudy, but it was almost to me implied
like, well, if people thinkthat we've intended or you know, we've
had Rudy on him the whole series, we really haven't, or we haven't
wanted to, because the best approachfor us defensively is with cats. So
(20:42):
it isn't new for us to putcat on him. We were just able
to keep him on the big guylonger because he finished the game with three
foules. Yeah, people that aresaying it's a big adjustment are telling on
themselves that they had which is fine. That's okay, it's fine. Nobody's
perfect. Here's the conspiracy, here'sthe Baltimore material. Potentially, I'm hearing
(21:03):
a lot of this today. Well, it shouldn't work this way, but
deep down embedded in the heads ofthe players, the Denver players is they
know they've got Game seven at home. So the implication is the Wolves played
well, but Denver, how oncethey saw kind of where it was going,
(21:26):
they basically said, forget it.We know we're going back home for
game seven. So the implication isthey really weren't even trying to counter the
battle. They weren't really even tryingto join the battle that much. Now
that's a bit insulting to the Wolf. It may end up being there may
be some truth to it, butto me, the message. There was
(21:47):
much discussion about the video montage beforethe game that allegedly inspired the wolves as
well. Of course, we neverwe only hear about these things after you
win. We never hear about themafter you lose. But the the to
me, if the Finci's message wouldbe, if he gets a hold of
this is hey, if that's whatsome people are saying, so guess what
(22:10):
they wanted it. They wanted it. Let's make them pay. Let's make
them pay both games they thought.Denver apparently thinks, ah, we're cool,
we know what we are. We'llgo back home where we and to
me, that's the speech. Thespeech is, let's make him regret that
decision to sort of bow out ofgame six early, like we didn't have
(22:33):
anything to worry about. Right,That's that's where you go with. That's
what you go with. You're lookingfor the game seven smoke, We're going
to give it to you. Thesmoke is coming back to Denver, and
it ain't the Canadian wildfires. It'sa Minnesota timber one. When was the
last time we've been happy thrilled witha Karl Anthony Towns game in which he
scored ten points. I'd have tolook back at the box score, but
he played a hell of a gamea hell of a game, both sides,
(22:55):
both sides. It didn't And again, if McDaniels doesn't get twenty,
he was a twenty two twenty three. Maybe we're looking at the at the
cat number a little differently, butthe fact is he gave him what they
needed within the ball game, withinthe flow of an offense that was much
more free flowing yep, that ithad been than had been previously. As
as well one turnover in zero offensivefiles for Carl two. That's the other
(23:18):
one's right because when they play throughhim, you always get a little nervous
that he's gonna like game what fivein game four? Yeah, definitely five,
tive. You know we had threestraight charges and not him but the
team. Yes, just driving inaimlessly. He was very composed and that's
what Ant talked about. In thePhoenix series two. He had another great
rant with Kat on the Dais withthem basically saying they don't have a matchup
(23:42):
for you. You have to stayon the floor, and then Carl said
something like I'm trying to play defensetoo, and he's like, stop bleeping
fouling. It was brilliant. Imean, so he's the he's the twenty
two year old exactly, basically tellingthe twenty nine what No, how old
is he twenty nine? He's inhis ninth year. I don't know what
his age is, but he's ayou know, upper twenties. That's the
irony of it. It's the twentythree years because they need him. They
(24:03):
either need him offensively defensively. Yes, you need him in both correct But
last night, this series specifically,and really last series too, because he
guarded Durant. I mean that's thething he's doing. He should be getting
nothing but like the anti go beartreatment because of the assignments he's taking on
to make this whole thing work.If he keeps himself out of foul trouble,
it's outstanding. We'll come back andcheck in with sam Mitchell, who
(24:26):
had us winning the whole title thathe wasn't so sure. Is he back
in the bandwagon? I don't know. But what did he see last night?
What from his perspective as a formerNBA Coach of the Year did he
notice Regarding that key question we askedfrom Finchy. Finchy, how about some
adjustments. You've lost three in arow. I think sam Mitchell thinks he
(24:47):
saw some finally last night, theanswer to the adjustments that, of course,
the Denver Nuggets staff and their headcoach mister Malone had made after the
first two games. Tottley off togo, Bear Street act to Rudy,
He'll kick you out. Hand's open, right side, he takes the three,
Who's to his left? Extra pass, Towns up top straight away.
Three missed that long ant teft therebound. Now Kat gets ahead to it.
(25:11):
Cottley's open edwards at the quarter.Texas to the great big do They
missed it initially, but the Wolvesstuck with it and cat like the extra
pass and the bucket. Eighteen tonine. That's a six ton oh temper
Wolves run. Alan Horton, voiceof the Wolves, right here on the
fan last night, as the destructionwas on of the Denver Bronc. Let's
(25:34):
say Denver Bronco was Denver Nuggets ingame number six. Sam Mitchell is on
his way, I think to someNBA TV duties tonight, kind of enough
to join us via the Connecticut WaterSystems hotline in his car. Are you
it is NBA TV duty for youthis evening? Correct? Absolutely, big
night, Big Knight, who's sotonight's Nick's Pacers. Yep, that's only
(25:56):
game that's on to night, thosetwo. That's big. All right,
let's get to what you saw lastnight. I called you about I think
one o'clock your time to yell atyou, because I said you'd given up
on this Wolves club. But yousaw right away you said we had You
know, I had talked and we'vetalked a lot on the air separately about
(26:17):
all right, Denver made some bigtime adjustments after the first two games.
We're looking for the sort of returnsalvo, and you think, finally,
you know, after the last threegames, you saw some of that last
night. What did you see youthought the Wolves did differently that that also
get help their chances to win Gamesix. Well, I think two things
(26:40):
they did. They dispelled that mytchyou know, me and my radio partner
Brian Gessler, and that we argueall the time because he's a firm believer
that the best way to guard thejoker is to play him straight up and
live and bust you for forty Butmy argument is, Okay, I get
what you're saying. Then that way, he doesn't get twelve assists, but
(27:03):
he's still gonna get the rebounds,And the problem is when he gets forty,
he does it so efficiently. Hedoes it on twenty shots. So
you can't let a guy go seventeenor fifteen for twenty and think you're gonna
win. Now, if he wentfifteen for thirty five to get forty,
that would be different, but fifteenfor twenty, no, you can't recover
(27:23):
from that. So I think,what the Wolves here? Two things.
They came up with a great schemeto trap him. They decided who they
were gonna leave open and do theirbest to get to him. They did
a great job of doing that.And then offensively they ran some sets that
really put Denver in a tough spot. And I want to give a shout
(27:44):
out to call after the Towns becauseI know it's tough. Call this the
type of player when he looks onthe court, he sees a mismatch.
You got a bigger guy on him, he's gonna take him outside and drive
by him. A smaller guy he'sgonna post him up. But in this
game, game six, he waspatient, he was deliberate. When they
trapped him. He made the rightread out of the trap. He didn't
(28:07):
try to make a scoring pass.He threw it right back to Anthony Edwards,
which is gonna make put Denver infull rotation and then get it.
To Wol's credit, not only didthey knock down shots, but when Denver
chased them off that three point line, they got inside the paint and they
scored. So I just think ChrisFinchin and Michael Nor their coaching staff,
(28:29):
they did a great job of adjustments. And I think that same game plan
that they used for Game six,I think a lot of that they're gonna
have to use in Game seven becausethey're gonna have to get the ball out
the joker hand. They're gonna haveto rotate to the shooters. But you
gotta decide who you gonna make beatyou. If it's gonna be Aaron Goring
and Braun and guys like that.In KSEP, that's what you got to
(28:52):
do. But I would not liftMichael Porter Jr. And some of them
others beat me from the three pointline. So I liked it adjustment both
defensively and yeah, great points.And they they also I think when they
sent doubles they recovered better in thisgame as well. They tended to there
were less times where you go aguy that's somebody wide open under for a
(29:14):
layup or a dunk. They didall that very well. And and on
to your point on Kat, weplayed a SoundBite earlier from uh, you
know, I was at the pressconferences after the game from Anthony who just
he you know, he has away of sort of simplifying things because he
doesn't have a filter, and hejust said, look, Kat's the guy
we've wanted on Joker the whole series, and we would have him on him
the whole series if he'd stay outof bleep and fall trouble. And I
(29:36):
told him stop and following, andhe did that in that game. He
only had three And and you know, I'm bringing this up in part because
I'm curious to get you know,you you're on You're on national shows,
and so you're connected to a lotof these guys. And I got to
tell you, I thought the slander, especially from Dream on Rudy for two
(30:02):
straight nights on that set was embarrassingbecause I'm not saying he couldn't have played
better, But you know what,I know that their defense is better with
Rudy as the roamer. And Draymondalso knows this. Sam that guy that
he's the best player in the world. He does that to everybody, including
(30:23):
Draymond, and it was like thishatred of Rudy I think superseded any ability
to actually analyze fairly what was goingon in that series. And that kind
of bugs me. Did it bugyou at all? Well? I work
in the building as a matter offact, with Draymond and all those guys
that was in there one night withhim, and it comes down to people,
(30:45):
person opinion. Everybody got a reasonwhy they say what they want to
say, right, whether it's personal, whether it's objective. But I don't
think yours personal, That's what I'msaying. I don't think you're I don't
think yours. I think you tryto rise above the person and I think
sometimes like with and it can't bepersonal because when I'm talking about players,
I don't you. I may havehad a bad experience coaching a guy or
(31:08):
playing against the guy or whatever,but that's not what you're asking me about.
My job is to tell you whatI see and not Again to your
point, that's nobody can guard theJoker one on one, nobody. But
you look at what the way Rudehas done guarding other people and from that
weak side position, and I thinkthat's been a key And yeah, it
has been you know a lot oftimes when Draymond is saying this stuff.
(31:32):
I'm on the air at NBA TV, so I don't necessarily here to see
it. I get it the nextday when I watch the replay. But
it's unfortunate. But that's something yougot to take up with the people.
A turner, Yeah, that's notI know, it's not your problem.
Well my pay grade, Yeah,well it's not. And look like you
know me, I'm a big opinionguy. He has a right. And
then one thing we do have,we do have an issue sometimes NBA TV
(31:55):
because I think guys, I thinksometimes they make their critique sound more personal.
They're more objective about basketball, andthere are times when we do have
a hard time, have a difficulttime getting guys on air with us because
they take it, you know,players take stuff personal. Yeah that's a
great point. And I think tome, part of this, and it's
(32:15):
a larger issue for another day,is that it's I think it's the danger
of putting active players on that exactly, because that's where it can get funky
about you know, battles they've had, and and because Draymont is bitter,
among other things, that he didn'thave as many. You know that Rudy's
got four defensive Player of the Earwards. I think that's a big part of
(32:36):
it. Unfortunately, Well think aboutit from this standpoint. If you're if
what if someone plays these comments backto ru to Gobert, I don't know,
two or three days or a weekbefore they play Golden State next year,
what may happen? Yeah, yeah, right, that's a good point.
So we'll see. Now, that'dbe great for us to give us
something to talk about, but Idon't think it'd be good for the league
and for the players. I thinkI think we all in the national media
(33:00):
should make our comment. It shouldnever sound personal. It should be about
what we're seeing on the floor.So one hundred percent. So let me
get into a couple of other areas. Because there is a game seven,
as you know now, on Sundayfor the for the Wolves. In the
three games the Wolves have won,Murray has shot a combined thirteen for fifty
(33:21):
That includes a four for eighteen Ithink that was last night and a three
for eighteen. So what is thatis that what does that tell you,
Dad, Once I'm asking you whoyou gotta guard to win? Yeah,
exactly. You gotta slow him down, you got yeah, because the Joker's
gonna get his And what it tellsyou is that even if Michael Porter Junior
and Aaron going to have good games, they're not gonna beat you. The
(33:43):
two guys that are gonna beat youis Jamal Murray and the Joker. Why
Jamal Burry is gonna have the ballin his hand in the gusts of the
game in the fourth quarter, He'seither gonna make the pass or make the
shot, and he's gonna be involvedin the high screening row. That's why
this's imperative when they go to thathigh screening rod that you're gonna have to
get the ball out of his hands. You're gonna have to rotate to the
(34:05):
Joker, and then you're gonna haveto take the chances. But the one
thing you cannot do, Please don'tleave Eric Gordon under the basket. You
can't do that. You're gonna haveto You're gonna have to anticipate where the
past is going. And I'm goingto say this to Dan and for the
casual listener, and basketball fan theywon't understand this, but you know,
(34:27):
as a defense, you can dictatewhere you want that ball to go out
of a trap. It's who youchoose to leave open. So you can
dictate and pre rotate where you wantthat ball to go. The question is
can't you get dare in time whenyou do that? So one of the
things I heard a lot nationally,not a lot, but some today in
reaction to the game was that humannature being what it is, Denver knew
(34:52):
it had a home Game seven inits back pocket and that maybe to that
extent they let go of the proverbialrole a little quicker. Is that fair?
Is that unfair to the Wolves interms of how well they played?
Or do you think deep down that'shad something to do with just I mean,
this was this was a historic onesided game here, you know,
(35:13):
in terms of elimination question, commonsense question, who's got all the pressure
on them? Now? But thegame seven don't team? That's true,
The trimber Wolves had it last night, the home team. Why Denver's expected
to win. They got Game sevenat home. Regardless of how the series
it being, they got Game sevenat home. So all the pressures on
Denver. All the Wolves got todo is go in there and play relax
(35:36):
and play hard and stay focused andexecute that game plan. The pressures on
Denver. They're the team that ifyou get them down, they're gonna have
to press You know, Mike Maloneis going to be more animated, He's
going to be pushing, especially aftera forty five point loss. So if
I'm Minnesota, We're gonna go inWe're gonna have a game plan, We're
gonna be focused. The number onething we can't do and got to understand
(35:59):
you're not gonna in the game inthe first quarter. If that was the
case, he Worlds would have lost. Denver jumped out what nine too correct?
Timber Wolves call the time out andthey say, you know they going
to epic run because at that nineto two outs in they're like, oh
my god, I know it's thatthe Wolves are not gonna go out like
this. And all of a suddenthey flip the switch and they look how
(36:19):
they righted the ship. So Ijust think, man, they got They've
won two games on that floor outof six. They know they can go
in that building and win. Butthe key is can you control Jamal Murray.
If they ConTroll Jamal Murray, they'llgive them an excellent chance to win
the game. Yeah. I reallydo think those numbers back up that that
very point. That's why I broughtthem up once again. And what do
(36:42):
you think is gonna happen? JamalMurray is gonna be really aggressive in games
because he reading the stack, he'slistening, he understands it. But what
you gotta do. You gotta makehim feel you. And I think the
timer Wolves got to look if theyrun their offense the way they did in
Game six, going to have anextra tance because again, the more times
you can get Jamal Murray, youknow, switched out on a Carl Anthony
(37:06):
Towns or Rue de Gobert where he'sgot to try to get physical to hold
his ground, it only going tohelp you. Yeah, no question.
So you played in the league along time and one of the traps that's
easy to fall into is you seea game in which the Wolves dominate to
the degree they did is and youassume that means, well, it'll carry
over. But nothing's carried over inthis series. In fact, I guess
(37:30):
Game one was the closest game reasonablyclose, with like four minutes ago.
The rest of them have all beenblowout so no Wolves fan can assume though
I don't believe that. Well,I mean, I see how they dominated
Denver in Game six. That theoverreaction to the performance in any single game
is a trap that many of us, even though we know better, sometimes
(37:53):
fall into. Right And you can'tbecause I would argue Game seven might not
look anything like Game six unless,as you say, the Wolves do two
or three of the same things thatthey did in Game six, it won't
matter. You'll have the big blowoutwin, but it won't win the series
for you. Well you know then, whether you win by one of forty
(38:15):
five a wins of winning, andit's all about winning. Get to the
next game. But I think again, the pressure is going to be on
different. You know, they laythe egg in game six and it's your
Minnesota. Just come out and play. Just be smart, take care of
the ball to limit the second shots, and run your offense. Make Denver
play into full rotation, and keepone thing in your back pocket. The
(38:38):
Denver Nuggets do not want to seea high screen and row with Anthony Elverson,
call it Anthon Town. Why becausethey can't stop Anthony edvers from getting
downhill. They after that was agun downhill every time, and Mike Malone
knows that. So play to yourstrengths, keep attacking this team, Just
keep moving the ball. I thinkwhen the Timberwolves to me, when they
(39:00):
make five or six passes, that'swhen they really put Denver in a tough
position because that means Denver and fora rotation and they're slow getting there at
times? Do they have to havethe same Jaden McDaniel's offensively that they got
in Game six to win? Well, Dan, every team does. Think
(39:21):
about it. If Carl does whathe does, if Anthony does what he
does, who's gonna be your thirdguy? The same thing for Denver.
Not only do they you see theylose with Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Julie
don't have a good game. It'sthe same thing, man, Your others
got to step up. So thequestion is what others for Denver and what
others for Minnesota is gonna step up? Because we assume that Anthony was the
(39:43):
Carl Anton Towns, Jamal Murray andthe joke are gonna do what they do,
But who's gonna be the others?Think about it? When Denver has
won, it's been Aaron Gordon,that's the other. When Minnesota has one,
it's been what's his name? Youjust missed it now I'm going that
excuse. Yeah, that's so it'sgonna come down to those guys. Uh.
(40:05):
By the way, I was alsotold that one of the other adjustments
that the Wolves made is on theon the Aaron on the on the Gordon
when they run, because they theystarted running more Joker, Aaron Gordon picking
rolls to force Rudy in the switchto end up on Joker, which is
what they prefer. And that whatthe Wolves adjusted to yesterday was that Rudy
(40:30):
was dropping more than he had previouslyon those actions, and that made it
a little easier for Kat to notswitch, to be able to follow Joker.
It's subtle stuff, but in theend, the numbers just back it
up with with with Kat as theprimary defender. They did send other people
at him some, but as theprimary defender, he just seems to have
(40:52):
a better body. I don't knowif it says he's built differently to bother
to the degree that anybody can botherJoker, to bother him a little bit
more than Rudy does well. Dad, This is what big guys and post
players defenders have to understand. Youknow. Flip used to make me guard
a Keem and karme alone all thoseguys. You know, he's not saying
(41:12):
I did a good job, buthe made me do it. But the
one thing I learned over the years, when you're guarding big physical guys in
the posts of the good, youcan't let them feel you. You got
to bump them early to try toget them off their spot. But if
you stand there and just stand behindthem and push and shove, they're going
to use your body weight and positionhim to spind off you. And that's
what Rudy does. He lets theJoker gets to his body. Carr does
(41:37):
bends to arm and try to keepsome distance, because when you make a
guy, if he can't feel you, he don't know how to spend Think
about it. Big guys love contact, and the less contact you give him,
the hard it is forming the score. So I think Carl does a
better job of giving up his bodyand not letting the Joker feel where he's
at, rather than with Rudy soearly. What are you looking for if
(42:00):
you're a Wolves fan, and you'rehopeful that, hey, why not us,
Why can't we finish this thing offhere in Denver? What do they
need to see? What do youneed to see to feel encouraged that you
know they've got a shot to pullthis thing off in game seven? Oh,
I think it's going at halftime.If the game is tight, then
the world's gonna have a good chance. You know, they can't be down
(42:22):
fifteen to eighteen yep, because yougot to extend so much energy to get
back to where you may not haveanything left to tank. I think they
got to be ready to come out, and they got to try to throw
the first punch on the road.I know it's hard to do, but
they got to put Denver on theirheels. You know, they got to
try to throw the first punch.Attack them, be aggressive, come at
(42:43):
them often. Key again, keeprunning your offense, keep forcing Denver to
switch and get the matchups that youwon't And you do that by being patient
and moving to basketball. I thinkif the Wolves can do that, they
have a good chance survive the initibaraUS and going to win the game last
night. You know, as you'rewell aware, because they brought you back,
(43:05):
the Wolves keep bringing people back tothe Target Center for games. Last
night, among those announcers Gorgy GorgyJang, a name you're familiar with for
more recent vintage. And then itwas Tom Googliata and your guy himself,
the guy you vouched for so manytimes, Isaiah Junior j R. J
Writer as well, you got yougot any? You got any JR.
(43:29):
Writer stories to tell us that,I mean, not even that I really
want to say, because they oweat the end it was some violence included.
Well that's not good. That's definitelygood. Either some arguments or something
crazy. Look. Uh, Inever had anything personal right against j R.
(43:50):
We were just at different stages ofour career. Myf period poor or
some of us. We were older, JR was younger, and I think
JR. Would be one of thefirst to admit that at that time of
his career his level of a professionalismneeded a little bit of work, need
a little bit more work. AndI'll leave it at that, you know,
I look, man, we allgrowing, we all changed. But
(44:14):
n I never really had an issuefor sale on a personal level with JR.
I respected him as a player,and I respected his talent, and
I think sometimes JR. Should lookat Anthony Edwards and kick himself because you
can't tell me JR. Ryder didn'thave the same athletic ability, the same
shooting ability, the ability that hadthe ball. He had all the same
(44:37):
athletic abilities that the Anthony Edwards.He just didn't use them the same way
this young man is using them.Because Jr. Right had the talent to
be an all star great player,very very well stated, for sure.
It just seemed like at that timewe had had guys in the league trying
to pretend to be something that therewasn't instead of being the best basketball player
(45:01):
they could be. Yeah, Ithink the different with it was is all
he wants to do is be thebest basketball player he could be, not
something else. You know, backbeing looking at all the guys in the
league, there was trying to berappers and this and dad and like,
dude, why don't you just focuson being a basketball player. The knucklehead
factor, I think is what wecalled it back in the day to try
(45:22):
to put kind There's there's different words, but knucklehead's probably better. Uh and
not quite as as vicious. That'syour word, yeah, my word,
Yeah, that's my word. Knuckleheadis my word. Okay, Lastly,
what do you think it would meanto this franchise if they were able to
pull off a victory in Game sevenin Denver and advance for the first time
(45:44):
in twenty years the conference finals.Well, Dan, I mean, it's
obviously we're being everybody be excited becauseagain, you get back to a conference
finalist. You've only been to awas been to NBA Finals one. No,
they haven't not one the mental conferencefinals once and it'll get you one
step closer to the NBA Finals somethingthat. But you have to remind yourself
(46:06):
and remember the Wolves have been thebest defensive team all year. They've been
one of the top teams in theWestern Conference all year. So we shouldn't
be surprised, right yep, athow well they're playing. And they got
two legit All Stars on that team, carl Anthon Donalds and that necklace,
So we shouldn't be surprised at whatthe Wolves are doing. Now. They
(46:27):
don't have the experience that some ofthese other teams have, but that's okay.
If we found out in this playoffs, you know, yep, the
teams that's ready to play going tohave the best hands to win. So
I think what the Wolves that feellike, man, give them the chance
to get to the Western Conference Finals. It makes you one of four teams
they can win the NBA Championship.You're gonna talk a lot tonight on NBA
(46:47):
TV obviously about Game six Pacers andKnicks, because that would force a Game
seven. There'd be two Game sevenson Sunday if the Pacers can win.
I assume you saw or heard theRick Carlisle audio when reporters have basically asked,
Okay, you know what we whatdo you? You know? What
does your team need to do?What is your best player need to do?
(47:08):
And every other it was like expletivefilled everywhere. Other word was just
bleeping rebound, just bleep and tryhard, Just bleep and play. It's
been kind of interesting. Do hearRick Carlisle go from moaning about the officials
to moaning more about his own team'seffort and rather refreshing Well, then,
look, I'm not in that lockerroom, but I tell you this.
(47:31):
I think at this stage of theplayoffs, you know you may beat me,
but it would be concerned to meas a player. As a coach,
you could say a lot of thingsabout me, but one thing you
could never say. Don't question myeffort. Don't question what I'm coming out.
They're playing hard now. I maybe playing like a dog, I
may be playing bad, yeah,but my effort is going to always be
(47:53):
there. This is the playoffs,man. You know, at this stage
you're not playing for money. Ihope people really the playoff shares and the
playoff bonuses at this stage it's peanutscompared to what playoffs make today, right,
and that money gets taxed. Hardplayers are not playing for money at
this dage. You're playing for thatring man, You're playing for that pride.
(48:14):
You're planning to say we were thebest in twenty twenty four. That's
what you're playing for. So Ithink as a coach, if you're questioning
your team's effort and how hard theyplayed at this stage, I would be
concerned. Yeah. Yeah, that'sa very fair point because it's a little
late right now. I mean,I mean, if you're not playing hard
(48:36):
now now, are you going toplay hard? No? It's not.
I mean think about it. Well, it's an indictment. It's an indictment
of either the players or the coach. You could say it's like, well,
that's sort of part of the job, right, Well, Dan,
I think sometimes and sometimes coaches,you know, get get confused with playing
hard to when you get beat.Sometimes you get your ass beat and you
(48:57):
played hard. You know, it'snot that every time we get beet,
we didn't play hard, right,you know? I hate when coaches stand
up and all they screamed during thegame and played harder. Well, Dann,
it won't you call a time outto give us some adjustments? Do
that. I'm playing hard, They'rejust playing better. I remember one night,
Damn, I'm not gonna call thecoach name, but this team was
(49:17):
kicking our but in high screen role. I think it was Kevin Johnson and
Tom Tambers, and I think Teenyshas seventy two points at halftime, and
then Tom Tamors and Kevin Johnson betweenthe matter had sixty of the seventy two,
all in the high screening road.And the coach at the time,
and it wasn't Flip came in screamingabout and wrote physical college till on the
(49:42):
board and this kind of like westood up like a choir, physical college
till my ass tell us how wegonna guard that damn pitch and Road and
the physical man. They wunna takea roll on us. How we gonna
guard it? Tell her to giveus something to do about that, and
at that point that coach loss usin the locker room. That's a great
point because at that point we knewit had nothing to do with playing hard.
(50:06):
It had nothing to do with beingphysical. They were running the play
and the way we were defending itdidn't work, obviously, because they have
seventy two points. And instead ofgiving us an alternate, an alternative way
of playing it, all you're goingto do is come in and basically say,
well, they're doing this because y'allain't playing hard. And what the
coach tim realize is an insult toa pro, the talent professional. He's
(50:30):
not playing hard. Day. Thinkabout how you would feel if your producer
or director, whoever you was,your bunk came it to your show and
told you you're not prepared. Yeah, and then but then the pay yeah,
and then didn't explain what do youmean by that? You got to
give it. You're looking for specifics, is what you're saying. You look
(50:52):
for, Give me something if I'mnot playing hard, Tell me how you
got to show me because just aplayoffs, I'm playing and it's hard.
I'm locked in now. I promiseyou didn't we played hard last night.
I promise you ain't. This Minnesotais not that Minnesota played harder. Minnesota
played better. That's it. That'sit. I guarantee you. You go
(51:16):
to you. You're telling me JamalBurray wasn't trying last night. The joker
wasn't trying. No, you're tellingme anthat was when they got beat those
those three games in the row.They didn't try. And one thing I
respect about Chris Chris Finch when theylost those three games, did he ever
(51:36):
come in the locker room and say, well we lost because we didn't try
hard tonight, we didn't play hard. No, No, his decision makes
They executed us right exactly. Everybody'splaying hard. It's the team that's gonna
take the game plan and make theadjustments and execute the bed and oh,
by the way, to make ashot. We'll leave it at that.
(52:01):
We appreciate the time. As always, we'll talk. Let's make the next
date to conference finals. Hey man, let's do it. Thanks Sam,
have a good broadcast tonight. We'llbe watching. Thank you be good.
That is Sam Mitchell NBA TV tonight. He's also on Serious XM over the
weekends the NBA channel there as well. H Top of the Hour pause will
(52:23):
be followed by a visit bonus visitwith Johnny Athletic, who is I'm sure
on his way to Denver. Uh, he'll be there. He wouldn't miss
a Game seven. We'll get tosome reaction via the text line as well.
Ben Gesling yet to come, RickBozic on a PGA controversy that he
might think is a bit overblown.We'll see, and before we're don Lavelle
(52:45):
e Neil. The third full show, the rest
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