This Episode Features Recap From The Golden State 4-1 Series! -Plus, Preview and Predict Timberwolves vs OKC Thunder Series! -Breaking Down All The Keys For Victory! -Turnovers Will Kill The Wolves? -ANT and Randle Decision Making is HUGE! -Randle Point-Foward Last 2 Series! -Naw & Donte Need To Shoot Better! -Is Conley Turning The Corner? -Naz Defense & Turnovers Issue?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Minnesota basketball fans. Welcome back to the Living and Loserville Podcast.
I am your host, Chris Carlson. We are live on
a Sunday night, and now we officially know who the
Timberwolves are playing, and that of course is Oklahoma City,
the Oklahoma City Thunder. They are the favorites. I saw
(00:24):
a tweet now just saying that sentence, can you know,
be a bad thing as far as lies and misinformation. However,
I'm wondering if this is true. It said that, and
I think it was just the Western Conference Final that
they have like the the biggest it's like the largest
(00:47):
gap when it comes to odds ever over the Timberwolves.
And you know, I'm a Timberwolves fan. I try to
be somewhat non biased as a fan and kind of
a part time media member, but that kind of blows
me away. I think that's Vegas is Vegas, don't get
(01:10):
me wrong, but it kind of feels a little disrespectful
considering they just got of it out of a seven
game series. But I'll have to do a little bit
more research on that if that is in fact a
true statement. I knew they were the clean favorite, no doubt.
(01:36):
Even I think it was when that series was three
to two, the thunder her up and so I knew
because they kind of had the odds for Denver and
Oklahoma City going against Minnesota once Minnesota advanced last Wednesday,
and it was about a fifty to fifty even you know, odds.
(01:57):
I think we're just a slight favorite. Both of them
are minus nobody had a plus number, and you know,
I guess on on the same side, Minnesota fans this
year and coming off of last year's playoffs would be like, dude,
that's bullshit. We should be a larger favorite. So and
(02:19):
it has been what six straight against them or something
like that, so that obviously plays into it. But in
the same breath, I like that we're underdogs because think
about it, our team, in our best player ant, we've
won six in a row. We won what three out
of four in Denver to win that series, So yeah,
(02:42):
we've won six in a row. Now against Denver, you
know that would probably have our result in having our
guard down, especially game one like we just did if
you remember correctly, in game one in this series. So
I don't know what I think about that. I understand,
like analytically, point differential and all this stuff. And I'm
(03:08):
not trying to act like point differential doesn't mean anything.
But you know, okay, SE is like on paper the
best regular season team almost you know it's up there.
Obviously it's not. But the way people talk about it
mostly analytically though, and like I said, a lot of
(03:31):
times the eye tests. You can look up the stats
and go, oh, yeah, that's about right right. Sometimes you know,
things surprise you or whatever. But I like it. I
love that we start on the road. I love that
worthy underdog because it suits us best. It just does,
you know, it just does. So we will kind of
(03:55):
when I say we, it's just me today, but we're
we are going to get this through together, right, We're
going to talk it through, even though it's a one
sided conversation with myself. We're gonna talk through a little
bit of the Laker stuff, I know, or the Golden
this it's been so long I forgot who the hell
(04:15):
we played the Golden State kind of how the last
few games, and just talk a little bit about that.
Life got in the way last Sunday. I did mean
to do a show, but I had to work much
later than expected, and I was just the way this
series was going. It was like, all right, we're up
three to one. Why do a show and then have
(04:36):
to turn right around or even do it at this
last Thursday? Okay, great wrap up Golden State and then
you know, two days later to a show. So I figure,
why not just get a fresh start. So obviously Tuesday
and everybody, you know, I'm a night out, but everybody's
pretty happy about you know, the seven thirty starts. I
think there's even a seven start if I remember correctly. Anyway,
(04:58):
so we're going to talk a little bit about the
Golden State series, you know, and clearly that would have
been a much more difficult series with Steph. I'm not saying,
you know, you lose the series, per se. I wouldn't
just base it off that game one because that Game
one was kind of like the Timberwolves. You know, they
(05:19):
came out lacking, they came out without urgency, and I
don't think that'll be the case in this series. But yeah,
we'll kind of talk about how we got here with
the five game stuff and in some of the keys
to it, and I'll and I'll do a little bit
(05:40):
of my notes from the games, trying not to bore
you too much with that and then preview and predict,
not just preview, but this podcast predicts. And yeah, that's
a little bit of a shot out there the series,
so you know before where I get too far into it.
(06:03):
If this is your first time listening to the Living
and Loser Bill podcast, welcome. It's under the umbrella of
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(06:25):
Our iHeartRadio, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and more. While you're
at it, head on over to the Gruelingtruth dot com.
In Sports News twenty four One more thing from direct
TV stream sign up and say thirty dollars in your
first month starts streaming. Direct TV stream for only fifty
(06:48):
nine for the first month, whether you're streaming on the
go with your smartphone or watching with your smartphone or sorry,
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entertainment you want, when you want it, wherever you want it.
(07:09):
Like I said, the Choice package starts at fifty nine.
That's fan duel included along with the SEC network. If
you want the Ultimate package, that's eighty nine ninety nine.
That's over one hundred and sixty channels. That's for the
first month, and then the premiere package. Okay, this is Cinemax.
(07:33):
I almost said Skinmax Max, which they're going to turn
back to HBO Max Showtime or Paramount with Showtime Stars
one ninety nine for the first month. Okay, that's direct
TV stream. So you know the players, obviously, we don't
(07:54):
want them reflecting on the season and patent each other
on the bat back too much, right, And you could
kind of tell maybe it was because they've kind of
been there, done that a little bit and then kind
of not got smoked. They didn't get smoked in the
even though it was only five games against Dallas, the
first three games they get, they didn't get smoked. You know,
(08:17):
they just didn't execute offensively. Obviously. We know Kat struggled
from three in that in that series. Maybe it was
because Curry you know, left that game one. But they
were they were happy, but they weren't freaking out. They
weren't popping champagne, not like you do that. What is
(08:37):
the only sport you do that? Each round is baseball, right,
which I always I know it's a long season, but
that always rubbed me the wrong way, and let you know,
when I was a kid, I liked it. But anyway,
they did seem more business like. After that Game one,
(09:00):
they knew Kurry was out. Obviously you didn't know if
he's gonna be able to come back. Game six, it
was likely not the case, but you had an opportunity
there that these next four games, you know, you got
to handle business, whether it's ugly, whether it's pretty, whether
it's a mix of it. And it kind of was
you have to take care of business. You just you
(09:22):
just do, and they did. They did, so that is
a step in the right direction. So I do. I
do think the experience kind of that hunger, kind of
that focus. It sounds you know from Finch anyway, it
sounds like in the practices they've been very business like.
(09:46):
I think the whole thing last year really helps us
as far as experience. Now OKC has experience and they
got to the second round lost a Dallas last year.
They just got done facing a former shamp a couple
of years ago right from Denver. Not the same squad
as they had that year, but still a very fierce
(10:08):
competitive team. It went seven games, so they're probably getting
something out of that too. But either way, it's not
like we kind of blew our load. Let's put it
that way, because we know that seven game series the
way it played out, to be down three to two
after being up to oh on the road and to
(10:30):
dramatically have a comeback, you know, in that seventh game,
it took a lot onto us and and we had
to go right into it, right into that next series.
And that's exactly what OKAC has to do. Now. It
didn't necessarily we get a little sip of water. It
didn't necessarily it wasn't that, it wasn't that you know,
(10:52):
where they did this dramatic comeback or whatever. But I
still had to go seven. And they're a young team
for the most part. But it can be mentally and
physically right not to get that extra day or two.
And by the way, it's every other day from here
on out in this series. Obviously, knock on wood, if
(11:14):
you make the finals, you get gaps in there. But
and just in case it goes Sunday, June first game seven,
there would be three days off because it would start
the fifth, Thursday. Is that the fourth or the fifth? First? Yeah,
(11:37):
so yeah, it'd be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off. So it's
the fifth. So even if we went seven, we'd at
least get some time off. But that's neither here or there.
Here I am getting ahead of it. I'd say, I
just obviously we're in a better spot. We know, we
didn't beat a top level team, per se. Now, that
team in Golden State played really great defense, and I
(12:00):
think that was a very good experience. But you know,
once you lose Curry, it's you know, it's tough to
duplicate that. Now, Kaminga was acting like he was putting
up Curry numbers at times, maybe not three, but just
in general then seemed like he couldn't miss a damn shot.
(12:21):
But you know, the big flip in these last two
series has been crunch time, right, putch the up up
or down by five five minutes remaining what were we
like twenty two and twenty six or some just horrible record.
(12:45):
We were garbage in it. And we've turned that around,
which is pretty damn impressive, and we needed to do that.
In that Game three, you know, Green had picked up
a fifth foul and it was a tight, tight game,
and they had like somewhere in the fourth quarter they
had like thirty bench points, and I mean they Golden State.
(13:09):
But it was it was tight. It was very tight.
With four fifty six left, it was eighty four or
eighty seven, eighty four or something like that. It was
a very tight game. And you know, Rudy was hitting
his free throws. That's something that he kind of turned around.
He had a bad stretch early in the season of
(13:29):
it with his free throws, but then he did tighten
up when it came to that. But yeah, eighty seven,
eighty four, three fifty eight to go. Jaden hits a
three very late in the shot clock. Rudy did get
a charge to get his fifth fall, but Randall passed
the Rudy for an N one dunk. Of course, you
know healed came right back and it hit a three.
(13:53):
But you know, Randall drove, he had a nice drive.
He also hit a three. He was up to a
triple double at that point. Ant went off in the
second half. In fact, he really started to Game three.
In Game four, he went off in the second halfs
whereas you know, not so good when it came to points. Anyway,
(14:17):
in the early going game four Nas had some foul issues.
They were getting a ton of offensive rebounds. I think
in the first half they had nine offensive rebounds, and
and once again Tim Roves are having some some issues
with his zone. It seemed like Randall showed up and
(14:41):
started getting it go in the second I think he
had fourteen and a half in that game. But it
was it was a tight game. It was a very
tight game for quite some time, and then it kind
of like late third they blew it open a little
bit and what nuts, you know, at the five thirty mark,
(15:03):
he had fourteen points. In the fourth it was eighty
to sixty eight. The rebounding and the defense in the
second half from Jayden didn't he have Like he had
like one or two I think it was one rebound
in the first half, and then he ended up with
a bunch of them and they were hitting their threes.
Aunt did get in a little bit of foul problems.
He actually picked up his fifth foul fairly early in
(15:26):
the fourth quarter. But we had I think it was
like a nineteen to two run something like that, and
really blew open that that game for ninety seven to
seventy seven. And of course we had early turnovers, right,
Like I said, Aunt picked up some foul, his fifth foul,
(15:47):
but then so early turnovers. But then they controlled the
court like it was like, all right, some turnovers, but
we got it. But then the bench for Golden State
made a run. And I gotta admit, like that that
last few minutes, I never felt like they were gonna
(16:07):
win it per se, but it was getting shaky. And
for that to be one seventeen to one it did
it is very misleading, let's put it that way. But
they they got the job done. Alton, right, that was
the big thing. The closed out game Punky with turnovers.
(16:27):
Randall was like, hey, I got it. I'll turn it
over early and even know and then he tightened up
and then Aunt and I would say, Nas, those two
in the fourth quarter were just like turn the ball over,
especially Nas just throwing silly stuff. But I think although
he had twelve assists, not trying to take away anything
(16:51):
from from Ant there, but I believe let me double check, Yeah,
seven turnovers, So that's still a lot of turnovers, you know,
if you're asking me so, which you are asking me,
because I'm just saying it, I guess, but anyway, you know,
Rudy was definitely active early again another closeout game where
(17:13):
he was very active and you could tell Amazon his
assist game, and Dante was hitting threes and we had
a thirty to twenty three lead at half or at
the end of the quarter. First quarter, Dante had like
a nasty two handed dunk and it was thirty eight
to twenty nine very early in the second, and then
some sloppy play, you know, some sloppy play came into it.
(17:39):
Kind of back and forth though, because Rudy, like I said,
he was five of five ten points, Randall had fifteen
points on six and nine shooting. They closed like with
a seventeen to five run or something, so they were
up sixty two to forty seven. Randall had a nice
end one to close. Conley was going crazy. He had
eight points three or four. Then he hit another three,
(18:03):
forcing Golden State to you know, take a time out.
So it felt really good at half, and you know,
I'm looking at the thing, I almost almost started talking shit.
So twenty assist in the first half. The ball was moving,
and when the ball moves, obviously we know good things
(18:25):
to happen, and especially for Ant, but both and in Random.
But when the ball moves early, it can come back
to Ant or Random, but especially Ant, and he can
get more catching shoots and he get just it's just better.
It's just better overall. As we know now, if you're
on a heater, that's different, right, But sometimes Ant we'll
(18:51):
just heat check, just the heat check, and it's like, hey, buddy,
you're oh of eight from three. You don't need the
heat check. We're in the playoffs. But you know, we
started out pretty damn well. More Rudy dunks, Randall was
really going off. It was eighty four to sixty eight.
Late in that third quarter, Ant was up to nine
(19:12):
assist Randall on nine of twelve from the field, twenty
one points, and we really blew it up ninety three
to seventy two to close that quarter. Now it did
Golden State. You know, they started grinding. We had some
early just stilly turnovers and Nas. I think in this
(19:34):
one too, where you're like dude and Aunt where you're
just wonder, what in the fuck are you doing? You know,
they got it to like nine, then Aunt hit three
and I think Jaden had a steal in that dunk.
If I remember correctly, but I thought, well, they didn't
lose their shit completely, right, so that was a positive.
(19:57):
But also Randall, he had eight points in that fourth quarter,
and it felt like most of them were like very needed,
you know, like it was like it came at a
great time, you know. And so we closed out the series,
and like I said, who knows what would have happened
win or lose the series with Curry. And there were
(20:21):
times where, you know, the term played with your food.
We did play with our food at times, and I
don't know if we would have played with the food
is long at times if Curry was in the game,
because we just would have been sharper. But that said,
we didn't come out you know, the first game. It's
not about sharp, right, it's about like it's not that
(20:45):
they didn't play hard, but like it just seemed like
they weren't ready to match the intensity. And I remember
saying this on the NBA Playoff Banter podcast, which by
the way, will be tomorrow night. I remember saying that,
you know, like these heading into this second round, that
(21:06):
the teams that are off six and seven games ultimately
it'll probably affect them in the series. But in the
short term meaning game one. It's kind of like you're hot.
And if someone if someone like the terms are out
for five, six games or days, I should say, you know,
there could be a little issue. And I and I
(21:28):
use the example of the playing uh or not the play, well,
the playing a little bit actually you do see that,
but the the play for the NCAA tournament, right, and
how we've seen like an eleven seed go really far,
but it's like you just played, you just played, boom,
You're in. You know. It's so there is something to
(21:49):
be said about that. But ultimately I think going seven
or seven games will help them. You know, there's just
no I don't care if they're younger not. It's all
about your legs. And and and even said that after
that seven game series of Denver and he went to
go the next day, he was like, you know, they're
(22:11):
having a little practice and he said his legs were gone.
So he's like, well, this is this isn't probably gonna
go so well, you know, and like I said, was
very strong for scoring, especially in games thre in game four,
kind of up and down on defense though, either really
(22:31):
all the way into it or not so much. And
that kind of that kind of was him in those
games A couple of those games, and I remember maybe
it was, I can't remember. I was game four, Game
three where Finch, you know, chewed him out saying, dude,
what's going on? Like the first half you guys are
(22:52):
just giving up. There was some bad bad defensive plays obviously,
or just lacking not necessarily defensive plays, but just you know,
just lack of defense, lack of Hey, dude, that's your
guy out backdoor, you know, like picking somebody up. And
you know, when we one of the keys is gonna
be shooting right, we're a better shooting team than them,
(23:14):
especially from the outside, right from three like ya a
fair amount by a country mile, like they would say
in the UK. And but we got to knock him down.
And when we don't knock him down, then you're on
a three on three or you're you're either way, no
matter if you have numbers or not, you're not set.
(23:35):
And so you have to pick people up. And that
is that could be an issue for us, and that
is something that we're gonna have to watch out for it.
But overall, though Aunt was pretty damn solid. Julius Random though,
for me, was the MVP on both sides of the ball,
playing that point forward, timely buckets, timely passes, the way
(23:56):
he uh the way he drew the attention and then
kicked it out. And that is the one thing about
you know about Randall at the four compared to Cat,
He's quicker footed. He's just a better four. It's just
in general, offensively and defensively. You know, we Cat was
(24:20):
up there this year when it came to like end ones,
not even just centers, like he was the year before
Rudy came here where he led the league and end
ones for centers, he was one of the top end
ones uh N one getters, if that makes sense, in
the league. So he's a My point is he's much
(24:41):
quicker off the dribble when a center's playing him right
as we know, and he's just not as good as
power for it. He's just not. And and also you
know Rudy's in the damn lane, so like he just
Randall's just a better power forward in a variety of ways.
But also now when it comes to passing, he fits
(25:04):
our system better for passing, you know, whether you're backing
somebody down, whether you're off the dribble, and the defense
collapse to kick it out to a three and they're
wide open. And it's been working really well. Right, It's
really good at drawing it, and he doesn't draw as
many offensive falls. He doesn't fall as much over all
(25:24):
this cat as we've even seen it when he's having
great games. Sometimes a thirty five point game in the
playoffs could have been his if he just would have
been healthy. I think you could say that in at
least one, if not two of these games that he
just played, you know, in the Boston series. So he's
been phenomenal and like I said, on both sides of
(25:47):
the ball. And he just like I said, he does
it when he he offensive rebounds really well and he
gets followed a lot in that spot. So he's just
he's kind of not kind of he's put it all
together Randall for us on both sides of the BAM.
Like I said, I think he was the MVP of
this series. I really do. So he was phenomenal. Right,
(26:12):
I thought McDaniels was very sturdy, right, rebound, strong, two
way play, still scoring, you know, Ever since we needed
more out of him once Dante and then eventually Randall
went out, and then even when Randall and Rudy were
out when we had him at the four. Actually, it's
(26:33):
kind of interesting because we had two games where Nas
was the five and Rudy or sorry, McDaniels was the
four against ok see, so that will be a feature
that we can definite. We know we can go small,
but we proved it on the court against them that
we can go small. So I did think McDaniels was
(26:55):
just steady, real steady eddie instead of like you know,
him randomly hitting four or five threes like we've seen him.
I think he had a game where he hit like
six and nine or something last year where he'll get
hot from three, but it just won't happen that much obviously.
But the cool thing is, even you know, when we
(27:17):
needed him more to be offensive, he really answered that
bell and he did it not just cutting to the
basket or corner threes, but he did it in his
own mid range way. And it's really about either straight off,
you know, straight up dribble driving and getting to the hoop,
or just dribbling in enough to where you're within like
(27:39):
eight feet and just raise up because no one really
can shot block you straight up. Not a many anyway,
and then we've been playing these small excuse me, we've
been we've been running the centers off the court in
these first two series. That's something you can say about
Rudy and he has said it. McDaniel's saying, hey man,
(28:03):
when they took that dude off, I was the tallest
dude on the court, you know, And that's true. So
his mid range game, he's really leaned into it. And
I wanted to see as Dante came back from more
scoring and of course as Randall came back and get
our starting lineup back and everything, you know, the full
(28:24):
strength was he going to be able to keep that up?
And he did. And it's not like a great thing
that he wasn't shooting. He wasn't hitting threes at that time,
but it didn't matter. In fact, it's better in a
sense that it wasn't just some kind of oh I
got hot for a couple of games, but it wasn't
(28:46):
really wasn't real right, wasn't something he could depend on.
Whereas he still if you look at you know, parts
of January and February or whatever, like his three point
shot didn't all of a sudden start falling right. But
he still scored like and I want to say, was
it February or January, I can't remember now, but he
(29:08):
he scored like eighteen points a game. You know, so
he was really really sturdy, and magically he has somehow
not falled as much. I mean the previous years we
had the like top five, top six, two guys McDaniels
and kat in the top five or top six of fouling.
(29:31):
I mean, when you're a great defensive team, you're gonna
follow more. It just happens. But like it was as
excess Rudy. You know, he was steadied defensively. He got
better at the free throw line as the series went on,
and when he was in there his on and off
(29:52):
defensive you know, analytics and some of these matchups that
always gonna get cooked and all that, he wasn't really
getting cooked. You know, he really wasn't. And he didn't
go twenty you know, seven and twenty four or something
like that, but he did have a very good closing
game and he had these little spurts where he was
(30:13):
making him pay, and you know it'd be interesting to see.
Obviously they're not going to approach, you know, like they're
not going to approach putting little guys on Rudy all
the time like they just did with Jokic. We saw that,
you know, this last part of the series, Caruso was
(30:37):
on him. It's a whole different beast with the Yolkicic obviously,
but it will be interesting to see, you know, how
big of a role Rudy can play because they do
have two bigs now, you know, they do have two
legit bigs, Conley and Dante. Are they turning the core them?
(31:01):
You know, I would lend itself to Conley maybe doing
what he can do. Obviously, coming off what sixteen points,
eight assist or whatever, he was hitting it. He was
hitting some clutch shots right when we needed it. But
Dante got it going. And even though him and Alexander
Walker hit their threes are way off, Dante's still been
(31:23):
able to get like four or five assists here and there,
and you know what I mean, Like he still has
been pretty solid even though he is shooting just god awful.
He did have thirteen points in this close out game,
four steels, six assists, only took seven shots too, So
are they turning the corner? Like I said, Conley's much
(31:46):
healthier than he was going in the conference final this year.
But he's only gonna give you so much, right, He's
clearly been past his prime for a while. But Dante
needs the needs to be better offensively, especially just shooting
(32:06):
the three, I mean, and he is very capable, you know,
he's very capable of it, and so I expect him
to to turn that corner Alexander Walker. Don't get me wrong,
I'd say nas in nah, I think you know Dante
(32:27):
in there too. It's just been inconsistent. He had that
twenty point game and then he had an al right game,
but he also had two games in a five game
series where he didn't get a point. Nas defense and
turnovers has been funky, but he still will hit like
buckets when we need it. Not necessarily, oh the fourth
(32:48):
quarter clutch and all that, but just in general, because
you know, I mean those those late late in the quarter,
early in the second or fourth quarter, those are really key.
And he has been in the lineup for some that
and you know, we've seen more than one time Must
make a run without Ant in the game, and we
actually saw that down the stretch of the season too.
(33:11):
So Alexander Walker needs to play better in nas, like
I said, sometimes defensively, it's kind of like scratching my head.
And a lot of folks are talking about and I've
talked about it too, about maybe the future is Randal
and NOAs together. Obviously that'd be trading Rudy and you'd
(33:34):
have to get like a solid rim protector rebounder in there,
just a solid one. Nothing that you'd have to start,
but you'd have to have one in there because neither
of those guys are protecting the rim on, you know,
like on a consistent basis. But so both of those
guys are very capable of having a great series too,
(33:57):
but we you know, we just need need more of them,
need more out of it. And you know, kind of
just actually saw multiple people tweet this and they said,
we just have to be eight and six and we'd
win the championship. And when you hear that, you go, man, eight,
(34:21):
And I mean you could go, you know, you could obviously,
I don't know, that's just crazy. Now you could lose
your first you know, four out of five out of
the you know, and you're not even in there. But eight,
I don't know, it's like eight and six is like, man,
that is fucking doable. But literally everybody has that right
(34:41):
eight and six and you win the championship. But just
to hear it, you're like, damn, dude, that's that's not
that tough, you know, but that's just a silly way
to look at it, to be honest with you. You know,
Rudy just kind of lining up the series your preview
and predicting it Rudy will be needed. Obviously he hasn't
(35:04):
been as needed in these first two series because they've
been small balling the shit out of us. But once again,
it's never been about Rudy getting played out the Ford floor,
excuse me, defensively. It's always been him offensively getting played
(35:25):
off the floor. Really hasn't been defensively. And even when
you look at that five game series with Dallas last year,
those first three games and could have, would have, should have,
but they were all winnable. We could have been up
two to one or down one to two, not down
three zero. Then, like I said, could have, would have,
(35:48):
should It doesn't matter ultimately, but it wasn't that we want.
We weren't what we It wasn't defensively, it wasn't all
we couldn't stop Luca Lucas just gonna fucking get his dude.
But it was all about not executing on the offensive
side down the stretch of a game. That's actually what
it was about, because as we know, we had a
(36:11):
rule change that actually helped us in a game. You know,
in the playoffs that you know, Kyrie bumped McDaniels and
that there's a good chance that Luca play wouldn't even
look like that because they wouldn't have had the time
and it would have been different and blah blah blah.
But Rudy's going to be needed. If we can make
it back to this series, He's going to be needed again.
(36:33):
So that's something that will be interesting to see and
see if they can activate him intelligently right because the
first year he was here, and even at times the
last two years, the Timberwolves have either, you know, right away,
(36:54):
we pushed it too much, like you know, finding him
in the post way too many times and it just
look like shit. But there's also many times that he's
wide open for a dunk and we just don't see him.
It's not just an it's just not you know whatever,
It just but we miss them a lot for dunks
every every single game, and of course you're gonna miss
(37:16):
them from time to time, but literally multiple times a game.
I mean maybe maybe if someone at home wants to
keep track of it. It's a lot. It's actually a lot.
So it's finding that you know that in between you
don't want to feature him whatsoever. But if he's got
a little dude on him, you got to make them
(37:37):
pay and at least try to get in the ball
and don't do any kind of funky pass to him
or you know what I mean. And we'll see a
lot of times you can kind of tell, you know how,
where it's where his head's at, where he's at aggressively,
where he's at with holding on the goddamn ball. You know,
like you kind of know fairly early with him, like, oh,
(38:00):
this might be a rooty game, dude, you know so,
But Rudy's gonna need to be here and be active,
no doubt about it. Like I said, Nah and Dante,
we're gonna need those guys. We're gonna need those guys
on defense. Who's really gonna need those guys on defense
and just overall, but especially on defense. Nah, is the
(38:22):
hell of a defender, you know, s g a McDaniel's like,
we gotta we got a couple of guys that we're
gonna use on on s g A will be interesting
to see, you know who they put con Lee on.
Maybe it's a dort I don't know, we'll we'll see.
(38:44):
One of the biggest things, just the obvious thing if
you've ever even watched an Oklahoma City game, is turnovers, right, turnovers,
Like they do a great job of both forcing turnovers
and then manning turnovers on offense, and that's key. And
(39:07):
we were sloppy in this last series. Really we had
a lot of a lot of turnovers. And then when
we talk about turnovers or them limiting turnovers, you're getting
off the ball pretty early on our side of it, right,
moving the damn ball. But also it's been more physical
(39:30):
per usual as far as being more physical, allowing more
physicality in the playoffs. But this year it's even up
a notch. They have allowed it more, so you wonder,
you know, even though we had that crazy comeback and
we won it in overtime in that game against Okay see,
(39:51):
you know many of us remember Finch saying it, it's
basically fucking irritating to play this team. You know, and
we had the chant at Home Free. You throw a merchant,
you know, like Sga is good at fucking getting fouls.
He just is. And you know, there's there's a variety
(40:12):
of high level dudes that just get know how to
get fouls and whether they're flopping or not, they just
do and they are but they just they just know
how to do it. Dude. They're just or if you
have a you know, a fourth fall or a fifth
foul or you're one fall away from the bonus. You know,
(40:34):
they know if someone's gonna put their hand there, they're
just gonna they're just gonna rip through and get a
follow easy foul. You know. So it's being like on
focus on, plugged into this. But I will say this,
as we know with this team and especially Ant and
his decision making, we've really thrived with these days off.
(41:00):
You know, I don't know if they'll come out cold
as shit again, I don't know, I mean to be fair,
Like we didn't come out cold against the Lakers Memembory.
We hit with like twenty one threes, you know, so
game one so and some of that is will okay,
see you know, like switch a lot because they're very
(41:25):
confident in their defensive you know players in general, Will
they blitz or will it be more like you know
the old boxes and elbow right feel the like get ready,
So he can't just have a free you know, lane
can't have a free path to the to the who
and they do have some guys that can protect, which
(41:46):
we haven't had in these last two games or two series.
You know, I don't, I don't know. Or if they
go zone right, I mean, why wouldn't you mix in
some zone against our dumbasses at times? Right? I would?
So I think the boxes and elbows where they're really
protecting shit saying you know, we're going to cheat this way,
(42:09):
so you can't just come in mixing the zone. But
also in switching, I think they'll switch a lot. I
think the most common thing they'll do is boxes and
elbows or just switch a lot. It just be confident
that they're a hell of a defensive team. Now, I'm
not saying they'll never blitz him, and because I think
(42:29):
they will, but he we did see an improvement, you
know with that pass through the double and it usually
right right around the elbow, right around the nail free
throw area, right, it was it was the passes like
right there and then it in a lot of times
it's Alexander Walker or somebody else, and they were able to,
(42:52):
you know, keep the ball moving. So I did notice
on the flip side, Denver having success in the zone.
See Mike Conley would probably appreciate some zone. And we've
always we've not always, but we've had a hybrid of
like drop, like Rudy's in drop and everybody else is
(43:13):
like in high wall, you know, like very aggressive. So
we we are very that's the one thing. We're very
We're versatile now on offense and defense, which is something
that you can, you know, you could say we we
haven't been and even the year before Rudy we were
up there. And defense, we're a pretty solid defensive team.
But the style of the high wall and just going
(43:36):
crazy with Vando and everybody running around speaking of boxes
and elbows like but that wasn't sustainable to do for
a whole season or a whole series because it just
wears you the fuck out. So but they're a damn
good off a defensive team. Are they as good as
we were last year? I don't think so. But analytically
(43:59):
they're like the best thing ever. You know, that's what
the computers say. And then you know with Rudy, you know,
will they go small on Rudy to try to hide
somebody or you know, we're on Randall too. You know,
I wonder, I wonder exactly what's gonna happen. There a
(44:22):
lot of people I've heard talking about this throughout the week,
thinking that especially when it's three to two, but just
kind of thinking that, okay, see would win either way.
You know a lot of them talked about Williams will
beyond them, a lot of them. You know, I've heard
a variety. The Randall thing is kind of interesting. I
will say that who is going to guard Randall? I think,
(44:50):
you know, my guess is that it will be Williams.
That's that's who I'm guessing. But I don't know, you know,
And then who's whose ant getna guard? Is he gonna guard? Uh?
You know, maybe you know, is he gonna guard Williams
in the starting lineup? Or would they put him on
(45:15):
like I don't know, someone ran him like like home
Grin or or Dort or you know, that's the thing
they like us with McDaniels, they do have Dort and
so it is nice to be able to have a
guy like dort In, to have a guy like Cruso
to to just be like, you're taking on an ant dude,
(45:37):
that's your job this series. So yeah, it'll be the
matchups will be very interesting to see. I will say this,
Heartenstein has actually played pretty decent against Rudy kind of
going through the games. And it's regular season, right, it's
(45:58):
regular season. We know if any team knows, we know
right that that shit ultimately doesn't matter. I mean, remember
Phoenix just kicked our ass like throughout the year. But
then the last was it the last game of the
season where they just whooped us and then we got
five days off and we're like, all right, cool, we're
(46:20):
gonna sweep you. You know. So the game won. I
think it was right around New Year's okay, see one
one thirteen, one oh five. The Wolves had count them
twenty three turnovers. NA had five Randall and NAS had four.
NAS had a great game up the bench, nineteen points,
(46:41):
but twenty three turnovers. Honestly, you're you're gonna turn the
ball over obviously, but if we're if we can keep
it like below say fourteen or something like that, now,
but we could win a game and you know, have
eighteen of them. But like, as long as we don't
(47:03):
get into that, seventeen eighteen, maybe anywhere from like sixteen
to twenty seventeen to twenty two seventeen sounds like a lot. Yeah,
it is, especially if the team's not turning the ball
over like they tend not to do. But we just
we have to figure that shit out. And this is
(47:25):
where it's a big challenge, you know, for the offensive
as a whole, but especially for and and especially for Randam.
And I would throw in mister we don't, you know,
call a play, mister Finch, because if shit's not going
(47:47):
their way, then we got to tighten up and we
gotta be more we got we gotta be more organized,
however that may be. And literally I just saw a
little you know, they're doing a bunch of interviews, like
press conference stuff with all the players and the coach
and and it's like, well, as long as you play
(48:08):
hard defense, he'll let you do whatever you want on offense.
That's what he said about Finch, And it's fucking true.
And I've always said he gives his players. These players,
not Chris Paul or you know, someone that can like
a maestro of basketball Lebron and Luca and you know,
(48:29):
not those guys. He gives guys that You're like, hey, dude,
what you got a leasha on that thing? Dude, you
need to fucking pull pull that thing in. So, yeah, dude,
if we keep turning the damn ball over, we need
to be more organized, we need to play call, we
need to do something. And so let you know that's
gonna be something. They're Game two one, sixteen to one
(48:52):
oh one. And by the way, getting into point differential,
it was two to two, but point different A lot
of analytics around that stat. You know, I think we
had the series by three. So there you go. We're
gonna win the series because we have a point differential
(49:12):
of three. But in that game, first of all, no Rooty,
no Random, no Dante. Okay, so you had Nas at
the center, McDaniels at the four lot. Jalen Williams played
really well, twenty points eight to seventeen. Okay, see was
seven of twenty nine from three, and we held SGA
(49:37):
to six of twenty one from the field. He did
if you can believe it, he got to the free
throw line. He was eleven of eleven from the free
throw line. Now and on the flip side, we won
the game by fifteen, but he was three or twelve
from three. He did get to the free throw line
ten of eleven, but he was five of eighteen overall,
Like I said, three thirteen or three of twelve from three,
(49:58):
So they didn't should the ball well from three. They're
not great three point shooters on average. I say that,
but they have a game where they hit like eighteen
against us, but actually so game three. So it's one one,
game three, Oklahoma wins. The Oklahoma City wins that one
thirty one twenty three. The Timberwolves did have eighteen threes
(50:25):
in that game. I still think there was no uh,
still think there was no Rudy and uh and Randall
in this one. Nasen and Jaden shined. Those two shined
in this season series. And I think actually, speaking of zone,
(50:51):
I'm pretty sure they got in the zone in the
fourth quarter in that game, because remember that was like
the crazy comeback. I think was twenty four points in
the fourth quarter, twenty five overall. We had been down
in the second quarter of the game four. Oh wait,
hold on, I totally just skip games DENI SGA in
(51:12):
the in the game they won, he was thirteen to
twenty four. I'm talking about Game three, he was thirteen
to twenty four to thirty seven points. He did turn
the ball over five times. They shot fifty nine percent.
And here here's what I was talking about. Nineteen threes
they hit in this game, nineteen and thirty five. Now
we hit eighteen, but and had five turnovers. And maybe
(51:36):
that was the game that they actually win zone on us.
But I believe we went zone in the fourth quarter.
That helped spark that. I think I wrote that down
in some notes there. Yes, that crazy comeback. And this
is game four of the season series. Second quarter thirty
two to seventeen, the thunder right fourth quarter forty one
(51:58):
to nineteen. They made it up all right. There only
thirteen turnovers. Like I said, it was that huge crazy comeback. Naw,
Shannon Dilly, I call Dilly, Rob Dillingham Dilly. They all
did really well, like I said, Nas and Jaden had
(52:20):
some really great games in this season series. So it's
two to two. You know, we we remember Game three
in Game four a lot because we either beat him
or we pushed them without a full squad, and you
know Jay, like I said, Jayden really becoming dependable as
(52:47):
just an overall player, but especially offensively dependable. Not getting
as many falls either, and there's gonna be some games
where he gets the fall problems NAS. And I'd say
NAS probably hasn't those balls. I don't know that for
a fact, but I bet you it's up there for
the playoffs anyway. But but Nas, he had that great
(53:12):
stretch and then he kind of you know, up and
down since then, and he had like that crazy game
was a game won against the Lakers. He actually had
a really good game win I think against Golden State too.
But he just has to tighten up overall. That that's
(53:36):
a big thing. He just has to tighten up overall,
and the team does as well. And I could sit
there and talk about this, talk about that. But when
push comes to shove, man, you know, be smart with
the turnovers, right, and you know, their biggest thing when
(53:57):
you talk about Oklahoma City, we've talked about the on
the NBA podcast that we do here under Ropodove Radio.
A lot of times it's been SGA and then who
the hell's gonna step up? And in the playoffs, you know,
Williams is averaging nineteen points, just a little down from
(54:17):
his season average. You know, he's shooting forty two percent
from the field, shooting twenty four from three. I think
Caruso is their hottest three point shooter, and maybe Wallace.
We're not that great at three point shooting right now either.
(54:38):
But so on the surface, when you look at well
Home gruns At, you know, averaging sixteen points, Hertenstein ten points,
like a cruse of nine door eight, like just but
does he have enough help? In my point, and in
this series with Jalen Williams, like you know, it's been
(55:00):
up and down, Like let's be honest, Like he had
a ten point game, he had a six point game,
he went off in that overtime game that they lost,
he had thirty two points, but then, like I said,
followed up with a ten point game. So and then
I gotta admit this kind of feels like so in
(55:22):
that last series he was sixteen, seventeen, thirty two, ten, eighteen,
six and twenty four right and from three it was
two to nine, three, three of seven, five, two of five,
four and two of five. Some of his shooting just
from the field eleven of twenty one pretty good, five
(55:44):
of twenty, five of fourteen, three of sixteen today, ten
of seventeen. So is he going like it sounds weird,
but Jalen Williams, who is kind of big, but he's
a little skinny. He's six I think he's like six
five six six four six five sixty six somewhere in there.
(56:07):
He's a little thin, but he is long. And you
wonder if they're going to go with him, you know,
on Randall, or they go with one of the bigs
on Randall. And this is gonna be key for both
At and Randall. Can they get off the ball? Can
(56:29):
they involve their teammates. Can they take advantage of matchups
when it's there? That's something Julius has done a phenomenal
job at and to be fair, and has done a
pretty damn good job of getting off the ball early
and Randall and others bringing the ball up and getting
the ball to him in different spots. So, I mean,
(56:55):
do they have enough help? Last year SGA, they had
some good performances but overall not enough. This year it
kind of felt like they weren't gonna have enough, but
they ultimately did. Now I gotta give credit to Denver
for playing excuse me, better defense. Pretty much everybody plays
(57:17):
better defense in the in the playoffs though, but they did.
They were a better defensive team. They found a way
to get some points off their bench. Westbrook, you know,
was either really good or like, what in the fuck
are you doing, dude? You know, it was one of those.
(57:38):
I think his his plus minus was like minus eighty
three or minus I can't remember the name. I can't
remember the number for the series, but it's bad. So
my point is they you know, I talk about how,
you know, Nah and Dante have to fucking wake up
from three, because they do. But we're a deeper team.
(58:05):
But how much deeper really? Though this time around it's
a it's obviously a lot tighter. We we haven't been
playing teams that were that deep. But when you can
bring Caruso and Wiggins and Wallace even that Joe dude,
obviously the other Williams like they are deep too, and
(58:27):
and Caruso is probably there, well, he is their best
bench player. And he's been you know, he's been in
a player, he's been in, he's been around, let's put
it that way. And for being off the bench, he
was in double figures the last four games. Some of
it's just timely, but a lot of signs when they
(58:47):
make it run. You'll see him on the court, you know,
and you know with dort Caros, Caruso, Carrosso in somebody
else that they'll throw at and you know, and just
gotta be baseent man, And you know I'm rambling. Let's
(59:09):
be honest. I'm fucking rambling now. I'm just gonna keep
going over the same old dumb shit I'm talking about.
It's prediction time. I get the Wolves in three, No
Wolves at eleven. I have the TIMBERWL. Okay, so I
(59:30):
still have. I haven't done the research, you know, Like
I said about that tweet about like the largest here,
actually let me pull it up real quick that we're
basically the biggest underdogs of all time. So this comes
from the daily Wolves. Don't quote me on this ship
the thunder of the highest favorite team in NBA Western
(59:53):
Conference Finals history going into their matchup versus the Wolves
highest favored team. Does that mean hold on the highest
favored team? You know how you read something and then
you're like, wait a second, I read that wrong. The
highest favorite Okay, so they the history part got me
(01:00:16):
though I first read it saying, yeah, they are, they've
been the they have the best odds to win the championship.
But this is saying in the history, so they have
the largest gap pass between two teams according to the
(01:00:38):
Daily Wolves. Right, that's fucking crazy, dude. That's like, that's
downright disrespectful dude. Like I said earlier, we did get
a three point margin. Though I mentioned that, No, they
should be favorites. I'm not saying they shouldn't be favorites.
They should now in clutch time, they haven't been as good. Now.
(01:01:01):
I'm not saying they haven't won tight games, because of
course they have. The Game six was really close until
it wasn't right. They won a game. They hit a
couple buckets down the stretch and were able to win
Game five pretty cleanly, but it was a tight game.
(01:01:23):
They lost an overtime game, they lost the first game.
So they haven't been all that great in clutch either
or not. I shouldn't say either because we're four and
oh and clutch. So will that carry over? Are we?
You know, we're playing our the best defensive team in
the league on paper, But there's just something about like
(01:01:46):
when we're disrespected. When we're the underdog, it really bodes
wealth for us. And you know, can we win game
one again? You know, like we have the Memphis series obviously,
last year Denver series, we won the first two games
(01:02:08):
the Lakers series on the road to win the Western
Conference Finals, and I guess become the biggest underdog to
ever win in the Western Conference Final. I don't think
that's true. We will have to win the first one
of the first two games. We're not the best at home,
but we are getting better as we saw now. I
(01:02:30):
said that we lost game one at home with home court, right,
So I think being the underdog, I would tell I
would show aunt that tweet every other hour and be like, dude,
do you realize that we are the lowest rated team
against the highest rated you know what you know? Or
(01:02:50):
the the biggest underdog ever. That's what this fucking tweet says. Man,
So get pissed off now, I'm rambling, like I said. Okay,
So if I think it's it's closer to a fifty
to fifty, then I hear a lot of people saying
seventy thirty. I don't agree with seventy thirty. Sixty forty.
(01:03:12):
You could sell me on I'm closer to like, you know,
like like fifty seven point five. No, I'm I'm closer.
I'm not saying it's fifty to fifty, but I think
it's a lot closer to a fifty to fifty. I
would put a sixty forty in down maybe fifty five
(01:03:33):
forty five whatever, you know. I think that they're an
experienced team now, no doubt. But they you know, they
just got by a team that is not as deep
as us. That team was really banged up, especially, I
(01:03:56):
mean Porter Is. You can't totally lie on him anyway,
but what you can do is get like some big
games out of him, maybe two of them where he'll
just go off right, he'll hit a bunch of threes,
but then other times not as much. We do a
good job against But I think Gordon was such a
(01:04:18):
key and Gordon was hurt. You know, it wasn't much
of a game obviously today. But long story short, I'm
picking the Wolves. I'm picking the Wolves. What I was
trying to say is like it's very like cliche to
be like, dude, it's a tough It's gonna be a
tough series. Just seven games Bro. But if we were
(01:04:41):
to go to Game three one to one, then I
think there's a possibility of closing out Game six. But
this team, I'm gonna say Wolves in seven because of
this team, where we could be up three to two,
you know, going into game six and we're like, yep, dude,
here we go. We're going to the finals, and then
we just get beat, you know, like you mother efforts
(01:05:02):
and then turn right around and play great. You know,
like we lost that first game to Golden State Boom
one four in a row. We saw that, like, you know,
losing to the the B team of Indie and then
playing pretty good, right losing to Milwaukee Boom, turn right
(01:05:25):
around and beat a team in Memphis who was hot
at the time. So yeah, that's my story. I'm sticking
to it. Let's see Tuesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday.
(01:05:45):
I'm trying to think of the next time we're gonna
do a game or a show Monday. Let's see Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
So maybe I'll do it after game four. I don't know,
it'll be next week for sure. I don't like to
(01:06:08):
do it on a on a you know, on a
day where they have a game. Obviously it's it's just
not it's not cool. It's not cool to do. So
I'll be back maybe after like four games. I'm not
solely sure when I'll be back, but I will be back,
(01:06:29):
damn it. Uh maybe Tuesday night, maybe Thursday. Not obviously
not this week, but next week. So within somewhere somewhere
in there, I'm gonna try to do a show. I
wouldn't doubt if it's not this Thursday, but next Thursday.
(01:06:51):
I don't know. As you can see, I'm very confused.
So I'm gonna try to do a show. I'll do
another show before the end of the series, that for sure,
but I'm just gonna try to fit one in. I
may have to do two shows next Tuesday, I don't know.
But either way, enjoy the series and remember, as a fan, dude,
(01:07:11):
we don't want the players doing this because that as
a fan, soak this up, you know, soak it up
like it feels great. Don't get too high and mighty,
don't get too confident. Don't be underwhelming though. Don't be like,
oh we're gonna lose bro, We're down one zip or
you know, we're down fifteen, you know, we're getting our ass.
(01:07:33):
Like this team does bounce back even when it I
mean even when they were winning three, losing three, winning three,
losing three. You know, like this team does have a
lot of fight back. And it feels like they have
more you know, tools to fix the parts. You know,
(01:07:54):
like they have more tools in the in the in
the in the the toolbox. That was bad anyway, I better.
I think that's a sign that you needed to shut
it down. Wolves and seven. Just enjoy it though the
shit doesn't happen much. Enjoy it. I can't believe that
(01:08:15):
shouts out the Kat that he made the Conference final
two and shots out to the Knicks. Dude, they're they're
fun to watch about that Pacers team. Oh boy, I
really like these matchups. By the way, I think the
NBA would want the Knicks in Minnesota because we know
large markets, we know small markets. But people don't know
is there's mid markets TV market and google that NBA
(01:08:40):
TV market and you'll see that we may be perceived
as flyover country in like one of the smallest markets
in the entire country, but we are not. Look at Detroit,
look at Miami, look at some teams that you think,
huh wow, we have more TV homes than them. And
(01:09:02):
that's what it comes down to. NBA TV market. We're
a mid size market and AUNT these last two years
has gotten great ratings. Most of the games these last
two years has improved upon the previous slot from the
previous year. I'm not saying it's you know, New York
(01:09:22):
in LA or obviously Boston LA, because the rivalry and
speaking of rivalry, I mean New York in Indy go
back to the nineties, dude, that shit. Okay, I'm doing
a Minnesota Goodbye. My apologies for people that are listening
to this podcast outside of Minnesota. It's called a Minnesota Goodbye.
(01:09:44):
So let's say you're in a restaurant right and you're talking.
Time you get up, you start talking talking talk, Or
if you're at someone's house, you're at the front door,
you're talking, you're talking to the driveway, you start talking
about the house or the grass or some shit. And
then you're in the car and the shotgun windows rolled
down and you're talking and you're talking. And that's what
I'm doing right now. I'm doing in Minnesota. Goobye. So
(01:10:04):
I'm going to shut this thing down, have a great week.
Minnesota basketball fans. Welcome back to the Living and Loserville Podcast.
I am your host, Chris Carlson. We are live on
a Sunday night, and now we officially know who the
Timberwolves are playing, and that of course is Oklahoma City,
the Oklahoma City Thunder. They are the favorites. I saw
(00:24):
a tweet now just saying that sentence, can you know,
be a bad thing as far as lies and misinformation. However,
I'm wondering if this is true. It said that, and
I think it was just the Western Conference Final that
they have like the the biggest it's like the largest
(00:47):
gap when it comes to odds ever over the Timberwolves.
And you know, I'm a Timberwolves fan. I try to
be somewhat non biased as a fan and kind of
a part time media member, but that kind of blows
me away. I think that's Vegas is Vegas, don't get
(01:10):
me wrong, but it kind of feels a little disrespectful
considering they just got of it out of a seven
game series. But I'll have to do a little bit
more research on that if that is in fact a
true statement. I knew they were the clean favorite, no doubt.
(01:36):
Even I think it was when that series was three
to two, the thunder her up and so I knew
because they kind of had the odds for Denver and
Oklahoma City going against Minnesota once Minnesota advanced last Wednesday,
and it was about a fifty to fifty even you know, odds.
(01:57):
I think we're just a slight favorite. Both of them
are minus nobody had a plus number, and you know,
I guess on on the same side, Minnesota fans this
year and coming off of last year's playoffs would be like, dude,
that's bullshit. We should be a larger favorite. So and
(02:19):
it has been what six straight against them or something
like that, so that obviously plays into it. But in
the same breath, I like that we're underdogs because think
about it, our team, in our best player ant, we've
won six in a row. We won what three out
of four in Denver to win that series, So yeah,
(02:42):
we've won six in a row. Now against Denver, you
know that would probably have our result in having our
guard down, especially game one like we just did if
you remember correctly, in game one in this series. So
I don't know what I think about that. I understand,
like analytically, point differential and all this stuff. And I'm
(03:08):
not trying to act like point differential doesn't mean anything.
But you know, okay, SE is like on paper the
best regular season team almost you know it's up there.
Obviously it's not. But the way people talk about it
mostly analytically though, and like I said, a lot of
(03:31):
times the eye tests. You can look up the stats
and go, oh, yeah, that's about right right. Sometimes you know,
things surprise you or whatever. But I like it. I
love that we start on the road. I love that
worthy underdog because it suits us best. It just does,
you know, it just does. So we will kind of
(03:55):
when I say we, it's just me today, but we're
we are going to get this through together, right, We're
going to talk it through, even though it's a one
sided conversation with myself. We're gonna talk through a little
bit of the Laker stuff, I know, or the Golden
this it's been so long I forgot who the hell
(04:15):
we played the Golden State kind of how the last
few games, and just talk a little bit about that.
Life got in the way last Sunday. I did mean
to do a show, but I had to work much
later than expected, and I was just the way this
series was going. It was like, all right, we're up
three to one. Why do a show and then have
(04:36):
to turn right around or even do it at this
last Thursday? Okay, great wrap up Golden State and then
you know, two days later to a show. So I figure,
why not just get a fresh start. So obviously Tuesday
and everybody, you know, I'm a night out, but everybody's
pretty happy about you know, the seven thirty starts. I
think there's even a seven start if I remember correctly. Anyway,
(04:58):
so we're going to talk a little bit about the
Golden State series, you know, and clearly that would have
been a much more difficult series with Steph. I'm not saying,
you know, you lose the series, per se. I wouldn't
just base it off that game one because that Game
one was kind of like the Timberwolves. You know, they
(05:19):
came out lacking, they came out without urgency, and I
don't think that'll be the case in this series. But yeah,
we'll kind of talk about how we got here with
the five game stuff and in some of the keys
to it, and I'll and I'll do a little bit
(05:40):
of my notes from the games, trying not to bore
you too much with that and then preview and predict,
not just preview, but this podcast predicts. And yeah, that's
a little bit of a shot out there the series,
so you know before where I get too far into it.
(06:03):
If this is your first time listening to the Living
and Loser Bill podcast, welcome. It's under the umbrella of
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in season and under the Ropeodope Radio podcast. You can
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(06:25):
Our iHeartRadio, Google Podcast, Amazon Music, and more. While you're
at it, head on over to the Gruelingtruth dot com.
In Sports News twenty four One more thing from direct
TV stream sign up and say thirty dollars in your
first month starts streaming. Direct TV stream for only fifty
(06:48):
nine for the first month, whether you're streaming on the
go with your smartphone or watching with your smartphone or sorry,
smart TV, I'm just just butchering this, watch it with
your smart TV. Direct TV gives you the access to
entertainment you want, when you want it, wherever you want it.
(07:09):
Like I said, the Choice package starts at fifty nine.
That's fan duel included along with the SEC network. If
you want the Ultimate package, that's eighty nine ninety nine.
That's over one hundred and sixty channels. That's for the
first month, and then the premiere package. Okay, this is Cinemax.
(07:33):
I almost said Skinmax Max, which they're going to turn
back to HBO Max Showtime or Paramount with Showtime Stars
one ninety nine for the first month. Okay, that's direct
TV stream. So you know the players, obviously, we don't
(07:54):
want them reflecting on the season and patent each other
on the bat back too much, right, And you could
kind of tell maybe it was because they've kind of
been there, done that a little bit and then kind
of not got smoked. They didn't get smoked in the
even though it was only five games against Dallas, the
first three games they get, they didn't get smoked. You know,
(08:17):
they just didn't execute offensively. Obviously. We know Kat struggled
from three in that in that series. Maybe it was
because Curry you know, left that game one. But they
were they were happy, but they weren't freaking out. They
weren't popping champagne, not like you do that. What is
(08:37):
the only sport you do that? Each round is baseball, right,
which I always I know it's a long season, but
that always rubbed me the wrong way, and let you know,
when I was a kid, I liked it. But anyway,
they did seem more business like. After that Game one,
(09:00):
they knew Kurry was out. Obviously you didn't know if
he's gonna be able to come back. Game six, it
was likely not the case, but you had an opportunity
there that these next four games, you know, you got
to handle business, whether it's ugly, whether it's pretty, whether
it's a mix of it. And it kind of was
you have to take care of business. You just you
(09:22):
just do, and they did. They did, so that is
a step in the right direction. So I do. I
do think the experience kind of that hunger, kind of
that focus. It sounds you know from Finch anyway, it
sounds like in the practices they've been very business like.
(09:46):
I think the whole thing last year really helps us
as far as experience. Now OKC has experience and they
got to the second round lost a Dallas last year.
They just got done facing a former shamp a couple
of years ago right from Denver. Not the same squad
as they had that year, but still a very fierce
(10:08):
competitive team. It went seven games, so they're probably getting
something out of that too. But either way, it's not
like we kind of blew our load. Let's put it
that way, because we know that seven game series the
way it played out, to be down three to two
after being up to oh on the road and to
(10:30):
dramatically have a comeback, you know, in that seventh game,
it took a lot onto us and and we had
to go right into it, right into that next series.
And that's exactly what OKAC has to do. Now. It
didn't necessarily we get a little sip of water. It
didn't necessarily it wasn't that, it wasn't that you know,
(10:52):
where they did this dramatic comeback or whatever. But I
still had to go seven. And they're a young team
for the most part. But it can be mentally and
physically right not to get that extra day or two.
And by the way, it's every other day from here
on out in this series. Obviously, knock on wood, if
(11:14):
you make the finals, you get gaps in there. But
and just in case it goes Sunday, June first game seven,
there would be three days off because it would start
the fifth, Thursday. Is that the fourth or the fifth? First? Yeah,
(11:37):
so yeah, it'd be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off. So it's
the fifth. So even if we went seven, we'd at
least get some time off. But that's neither here or there.
Here I am getting ahead of it. I'd say, I
just obviously we're in a better spot. We know, we
didn't beat a top level team, per se. Now, that
team in Golden State played really great defense, and I
(12:00):
think that was a very good experience. But you know,
once you lose Curry, it's you know, it's tough to
duplicate that. Now, Kaminga was acting like he was putting
up Curry numbers at times, maybe not three, but just
in general then seemed like he couldn't miss a damn shot.
(12:21):
But you know, the big flip in these last two
series has been crunch time, right, putch the up up
or down by five five minutes remaining what were we
like twenty two and twenty six or some just horrible record.
(12:45):
We were garbage in it. And we've turned that around,
which is pretty damn impressive, and we needed to do that.
In that Game three, you know, Green had picked up
a fifth foul and it was a tight, tight game,
and they had like somewhere in the fourth quarter they
had like thirty bench points, and I mean they Golden State.
(13:09):
But it was it was tight. It was very tight.
With four fifty six left, it was eighty four or
eighty seven, eighty four or something like that. It was
a very tight game. And you know, Rudy was hitting
his free throws. That's something that he kind of turned around.
He had a bad stretch early in the season of
(13:29):
it with his free throws, but then he did tighten
up when it came to that. But yeah, eighty seven,
eighty four, three fifty eight to go. Jaden hits a
three very late in the shot clock. Rudy did get
a charge to get his fifth fall, but Randall passed
the Rudy for an N one dunk. Of course, you
know healed came right back and it hit a three.
(13:53):
But you know, Randall drove, he had a nice drive.
He also hit a three. He was up to a
triple double at that point. Ant went off in the
second half. In fact, he really started to Game three.
In Game four, he went off in the second halfs
whereas you know, not so good when it came to points. Anyway,
(14:17):
in the early going game four Nas had some foul issues.
They were getting a ton of offensive rebounds. I think
in the first half they had nine offensive rebounds, and
and once again Tim Roves are having some some issues
with his zone. It seemed like Randall showed up and
(14:41):
started getting it go in the second I think he
had fourteen and a half in that game. But it
was it was a tight game. It was a very
tight game for quite some time, and then it kind
of like late third they blew it open a little
bit and what nuts, you know, at the five thirty mark,
(15:03):
he had fourteen points. In the fourth it was eighty
to sixty eight. The rebounding and the defense in the
second half from Jayden didn't he have Like he had
like one or two I think it was one rebound
in the first half, and then he ended up with
a bunch of them and they were hitting their threes.
Aunt did get in a little bit of foul problems.
He actually picked up his fifth foul fairly early in
(15:26):
the fourth quarter. But we had I think it was
like a nineteen to two run something like that, and
really blew open that that game for ninety seven to
seventy seven. And of course we had early turnovers, right,
Like I said, Aunt picked up some foul, his fifth foul,
(15:47):
but then so early turnovers. But then they controlled the
court like it was like, all right, some turnovers, but
we got it. But then the bench for Golden State
made a run. And I gotta admit, like that that
last few minutes, I never felt like they were gonna
(16:07):
win it per se, but it was getting shaky. And
for that to be one seventeen to one it did
it is very misleading, let's put it that way. But
they they got the job done. Alton, right, that was
the big thing. The closed out game Punky with turnovers.
(16:27):
Randall was like, hey, I got it. I'll turn it
over early and even know and then he tightened up
and then Aunt and I would say, Nas, those two
in the fourth quarter were just like turn the ball over,
especially Nas just throwing silly stuff. But I think although
he had twelve assists, not trying to take away anything
(16:51):
from from Ant there, but I believe let me double check, Yeah,
seven turnovers, So that's still a lot of turnovers, you know,
if you're asking me so, which you are asking me,
because I'm just saying it, I guess, but anyway, you know,
Rudy was definitely active early again another closeout game where
(17:13):
he was very active and you could tell Amazon his
assist game, and Dante was hitting threes and we had
a thirty to twenty three lead at half or at
the end of the quarter. First quarter, Dante had like
a nasty two handed dunk and it was thirty eight
to twenty nine very early in the second, and then
some sloppy play, you know, some sloppy play came into it.
(17:39):
Kind of back and forth though, because Rudy, like I said,
he was five of five ten points, Randall had fifteen
points on six and nine shooting. They closed like with
a seventeen to five run or something, so they were
up sixty two to forty seven. Randall had a nice
end one to close. Conley was going crazy. He had
eight points three or four. Then he hit another three,
(18:03):
forcing Golden State to you know, take a time out.
So it felt really good at half, and you know,
I'm looking at the thing, I almost almost started talking shit.
So twenty assist in the first half. The ball was moving,
and when the ball moves, obviously we know good things
(18:25):
to happen, and especially for Ant, but both and in Random.
But when the ball moves early, it can come back
to Ant or Random, but especially Ant, and he can
get more catching shoots and he get just it's just better.
It's just better overall. As we know now, if you're
on a heater, that's different, right, But sometimes Ant we'll
(18:51):
just heat check, just the heat check, and it's like, hey, buddy,
you're oh of eight from three. You don't need the
heat check. We're in the playoffs. But you know, we
started out pretty damn well. More Rudy dunks, Randall was
really going off. It was eighty four to sixty eight.
Late in that third quarter, Ant was up to nine
(19:12):
assist Randall on nine of twelve from the field, twenty
one points, and we really blew it up ninety three
to seventy two to close that quarter. Now it did
Golden State. You know, they started grinding. We had some
early just stilly turnovers and Nas. I think in this
(19:34):
one too, where you're like dude and Aunt where you're
just wonder, what in the fuck are you doing? You know,
they got it to like nine, then Aunt hit three
and I think Jaden had a steal in that dunk.
If I remember correctly, but I thought, well, they didn't
lose their shit completely, right, so that was a positive.
(19:57):
But also Randall, he had eight points in that fourth quarter,
and it felt like most of them were like very needed,
you know, like it was like it came at a
great time, you know. And so we closed out the series,
and like I said, who knows what would have happened
win or lose the series with Curry. And there were
(20:21):
times where, you know, the term played with your food.
We did play with our food at times, and I
don't know if we would have played with the food
is long at times if Curry was in the game,
because we just would have been sharper. But that said,
we didn't come out you know, the first game. It's
not about sharp, right, it's about like it's not that
(20:45):
they didn't play hard, but like it just seemed like
they weren't ready to match the intensity. And I remember
saying this on the NBA Playoff Banter podcast, which by
the way, will be tomorrow night. I remember saying that,
you know, like these heading into this second round, that
(21:06):
the teams that are off six and seven games ultimately
it'll probably affect them in the series. But in the
short term meaning game one. It's kind of like you're hot.
And if someone if someone like the terms are out
for five, six games or days, I should say, you know,
there could be a little issue. And I and I
(21:28):
use the example of the playing uh or not the play, well,
the playing a little bit actually you do see that,
but the the play for the NCAA tournament, right, and
how we've seen like an eleven seed go really far,
but it's like you just played, you just played, boom,
You're in. You know. It's so there is something to
(21:49):
be said about that. But ultimately I think going seven
or seven games will help them. You know, there's just
no I don't care if they're younger not. It's all
about your legs. And and and even said that after
that seven game series of Denver and he went to
go the next day, he was like, you know, they're
(22:11):
having a little practice and he said his legs were gone.
So he's like, well, this is this isn't probably gonna
go so well, you know, and like I said, was
very strong for scoring, especially in games thre in game four,
kind of up and down on defense though, either really
(22:31):
all the way into it or not so much. And
that kind of that kind of was him in those
games A couple of those games, and I remember maybe
it was, I can't remember. I was game four, Game
three where Finch, you know, chewed him out saying, dude,
what's going on? Like the first half you guys are
(22:52):
just giving up. There was some bad bad defensive plays obviously,
or just lacking not necessarily defensive plays, but just you know,
just lack of defense, lack of Hey, dude, that's your
guy out backdoor, you know, like picking somebody up. And
you know, when we one of the keys is gonna
be shooting right, we're a better shooting team than them,
(23:14):
especially from the outside, right from three like ya a
fair amount by a country mile, like they would say
in the UK. And but we got to knock him down.
And when we don't knock him down, then you're on
a three on three or you're you're either way, no
matter if you have numbers or not, you're not set.
(23:35):
And so you have to pick people up. And that
is that could be an issue for us, and that
is something that we're gonna have to watch out for it.
But overall, though Aunt was pretty damn solid. Julius Random though,
for me, was the MVP on both sides of the ball,
playing that point forward, timely buckets, timely passes, the way
(23:56):
he uh the way he drew the attention and then
kicked it out. And that is the one thing about
you know about Randall at the four compared to Cat,
He's quicker footed. He's just a better four. It's just
in general, offensively and defensively. You know, we Cat was
(24:20):
up there this year when it came to like end ones,
not even just centers, like he was the year before
Rudy came here where he led the league and end
ones for centers, he was one of the top end
ones uh N one getters, if that makes sense, in
the league. So he's a My point is he's much
(24:41):
quicker off the dribble when a center's playing him right
as we know, and he's just not as good as
power for it. He's just not. And and also you
know Rudy's in the damn lane, so like he just
Randall's just a better power forward in a variety of ways.
But also now when it comes to passing, he fits
(25:04):
our system better for passing, you know, whether you're backing
somebody down, whether you're off the dribble, and the defense
collapse to kick it out to a three and they're
wide open. And it's been working really well. Right, It's
really good at drawing it, and he doesn't draw as
many offensive falls. He doesn't fall as much over all
(25:24):
this cat as we've even seen it when he's having
great games. Sometimes a thirty five point game in the
playoffs could have been his if he just would have
been healthy. I think you could say that in at
least one, if not two of these games that he
just played, you know, in the Boston series. So he's
been phenomenal and like I said, on both sides of
(25:47):
the ball. And he just like I said, he does
it when he he offensive rebounds really well and he
gets followed a lot in that spot. So he's just
he's kind of not kind of he's put it all
together Randall for us on both sides of the BAM.
Like I said, I think he was the MVP of
this series. I really do. So he was phenomenal. Right,
(26:12):
I thought McDaniels was very sturdy, right, rebound, strong, two
way play, still scoring, you know, Ever since we needed
more out of him once Dante and then eventually Randall
went out, and then even when Randall and Rudy were
out when we had him at the four. Actually, it's
(26:33):
kind of interesting because we had two games where Nas
was the five and Rudy or sorry, McDaniels was the
four against ok see, so that will be a feature
that we can definite. We know we can go small,
but we proved it on the court against them that
we can go small. So I did think McDaniels was
(26:55):
just steady, real steady eddie instead of like you know,
him randomly hitting four or five threes like we've seen him.
I think he had a game where he hit like
six and nine or something last year where he'll get
hot from three, but it just won't happen that much obviously.
But the cool thing is, even you know, when we
(27:17):
needed him more to be offensive, he really answered that
bell and he did it not just cutting to the
basket or corner threes, but he did it in his
own mid range way. And it's really about either straight off,
you know, straight up dribble driving and getting to the hoop,
or just dribbling in enough to where you're within like
(27:39):
eight feet and just raise up because no one really
can shot block you straight up. Not a many anyway,
and then we've been playing these small excuse me, we've
been we've been running the centers off the court in
these first two series. That's something you can say about
Rudy and he has said it. McDaniel's saying, hey man,
(28:03):
when they took that dude off, I was the tallest
dude on the court, you know, And that's true. So
his mid range game, he's really leaned into it. And
I wanted to see as Dante came back from more
scoring and of course as Randall came back and get
our starting lineup back and everything, you know, the full
(28:24):
strength was he going to be able to keep that up?
And he did. And it's not like a great thing
that he wasn't shooting. He wasn't hitting threes at that time,
but it didn't matter. In fact, it's better in a
sense that it wasn't just some kind of oh I
got hot for a couple of games, but it wasn't
(28:46):
really wasn't real right, wasn't something he could depend on.
Whereas he still if you look at you know, parts
of January and February or whatever, like his three point
shot didn't all of a sudden start falling right. But
he still scored like and I want to say, was
it February or January, I can't remember now, but he
(29:08):
he scored like eighteen points a game. You know, so
he was really really sturdy, and magically he has somehow
not falled as much. I mean the previous years we
had the like top five, top six, two guys McDaniels
and kat in the top five or top six of fouling.
(29:31):
I mean, when you're a great defensive team, you're gonna
follow more. It just happens. But like it was as
excess Rudy. You know, he was steadied defensively. He got
better at the free throw line as the series went on,
and when he was in there his on and off
(29:52):
defensive you know, analytics and some of these matchups that
always gonna get cooked and all that, he wasn't really
getting cooked. You know, he really wasn't. And he didn't
go twenty you know, seven and twenty four or something
like that, but he did have a very good closing
game and he had these little spurts where he was
(30:13):
making him pay, and you know it'd be interesting to see.
Obviously they're not going to approach, you know, like they're
not going to approach putting little guys on Rudy all
the time like they just did with Jokic. We saw that,
you know, this last part of the series, Caruso was
(30:37):
on him. It's a whole different beast with the Yolkicic obviously,
but it will be interesting to see, you know, how
big of a role Rudy can play because they do
have two bigs now, you know, they do have two
legit bigs, Conley and Dante. Are they turning the core them?
(31:01):
You know, I would lend itself to Conley maybe doing
what he can do. Obviously, coming off what sixteen points,
eight assist or whatever, he was hitting it. He was
hitting some clutch shots right when we needed it. But
Dante got it going. And even though him and Alexander
Walker hit their threes are way off, Dante's still been
(31:23):
able to get like four or five assists here and there,
and you know what I mean, Like he still has
been pretty solid even though he is shooting just god awful.
He did have thirteen points in this close out game,
four steels, six assists, only took seven shots too, So
are they turning the corner? Like I said, Conley's much
(31:46):
healthier than he was going in the conference final this year.
But he's only gonna give you so much, right, He's
clearly been past his prime for a while. But Dante
needs the needs to be better offensively, especially just shooting
(32:06):
the three, I mean, and he is very capable, you know,
he's very capable of it, and so I expect him
to to turn that corner Alexander Walker. Don't get me wrong,
I'd say nas in nah, I think you know Dante
(32:27):
in there too. It's just been inconsistent. He had that
twenty point game and then he had an al right game,
but he also had two games in a five game
series where he didn't get a point. Nas defense and
turnovers has been funky, but he still will hit like
buckets when we need it. Not necessarily, oh the fourth
(32:48):
quarter clutch and all that, but just in general, because
you know, I mean those those late late in the quarter,
early in the second or fourth quarter, those are really key.
And he has been in the lineup for some that
and you know, we've seen more than one time Must
make a run without Ant in the game, and we
actually saw that down the stretch of the season too.
(33:11):
So Alexander Walker needs to play better in nas, like
I said, sometimes defensively, it's kind of like scratching my head.
And a lot of folks are talking about and I've
talked about it too, about maybe the future is Randal
and NOAs together. Obviously that'd be trading Rudy and you'd
(33:34):
have to get like a solid rim protector rebounder in there,
just a solid one. Nothing that you'd have to start,
but you'd have to have one in there because neither
of those guys are protecting the rim on, you know,
like on a consistent basis. But so both of those
guys are very capable of having a great series too,
(33:57):
but we you know, we just need need more of them,
need more out of it. And you know, kind of
just actually saw multiple people tweet this and they said,
we just have to be eight and six and we'd
win the championship. And when you hear that, you go, man, eight,
(34:21):
And I mean you could go, you know, you could obviously,
I don't know, that's just crazy. Now you could lose
your first you know, four out of five out of
the you know, and you're not even in there. But eight,
I don't know, it's like eight and six is like, man,
that is fucking doable. But literally everybody has that right
(34:41):
eight and six and you win the championship. But just
to hear it, you're like, damn, dude, that's that's not
that tough, you know, but that's just a silly way
to look at it, to be honest with you. You know,
Rudy just kind of lining up the series your preview
and predicting it Rudy will be needed. Obviously he hasn't
(35:04):
been as needed in these first two series because they've
been small balling the shit out of us. But once again,
it's never been about Rudy getting played out the Ford floor,
excuse me, defensively. It's always been him offensively getting played
(35:25):
off the floor. Really hasn't been defensively. And even when
you look at that five game series with Dallas last year,
those first three games and could have, would have, should have,
but they were all winnable. We could have been up
two to one or down one to two, not down
three zero. Then, like I said, could have, would have,
(35:48):
should It doesn't matter ultimately, but it wasn't that we want.
We weren't what we It wasn't defensively, it wasn't all
we couldn't stop Luca Lucas just gonna fucking get his dude.
But it was all about not executing on the offensive
side down the stretch of a game. That's actually what
it was about, because as we know, we had a
(36:11):
rule change that actually helped us in a game. You know,
in the playoffs that you know, Kyrie bumped McDaniels and
that there's a good chance that Luca play wouldn't even
look like that because they wouldn't have had the time
and it would have been different and blah blah blah.
But Rudy's going to be needed. If we can make
it back to this series, He's going to be needed again.
(36:33):
So that's something that will be interesting to see and
see if they can activate him intelligently right because the
first year he was here, and even at times the
last two years, the Timberwolves have either, you know, right away,
(36:54):
we pushed it too much, like you know, finding him
in the post way too many times and it just
look like shit. But there's also many times that he's
wide open for a dunk and we just don't see him.
It's not just an it's just not you know whatever,
It just but we miss them a lot for dunks
every every single game, and of course you're gonna miss
(37:16):
them from time to time, but literally multiple times a game.
I mean maybe maybe if someone at home wants to
keep track of it. It's a lot. It's actually a lot.
So it's finding that you know that in between you
don't want to feature him whatsoever. But if he's got
a little dude on him, you got to make them
(37:37):
pay and at least try to get in the ball
and don't do any kind of funky pass to him
or you know what I mean. And we'll see a
lot of times you can kind of tell, you know how,
where it's where his head's at, where he's at aggressively,
where he's at with holding on the goddamn ball. You know,
like you kind of know fairly early with him, like, oh,
(38:00):
this might be a rooty game, dude, you know so,
But Rudy's gonna need to be here and be active,
no doubt about it. Like I said, Nah and Dante,
we're gonna need those guys. We're gonna need those guys
on defense. Who's really gonna need those guys on defense
and just overall, but especially on defense. Nah, is the
(38:22):
hell of a defender, you know, s g a McDaniel's like,
we gotta we got a couple of guys that we're
gonna use on on s g A will be interesting
to see, you know who they put con Lee on.
Maybe it's a dort I don't know, we'll we'll see.
(38:44):
One of the biggest things, just the obvious thing if
you've ever even watched an Oklahoma City game, is turnovers, right, turnovers,
Like they do a great job of both forcing turnovers
and then manning turnovers on offense, and that's key. And
(39:07):
we were sloppy in this last series. Really we had
a lot of a lot of turnovers. And then when
we talk about turnovers or them limiting turnovers, you're getting
off the ball pretty early on our side of it, right,
moving the damn ball. But also it's been more physical
(39:30):
per usual as far as being more physical, allowing more
physicality in the playoffs. But this year it's even up
a notch. They have allowed it more, so you wonder,
you know, even though we had that crazy comeback and
we won it in overtime in that game against Okay see,
(39:51):
you know many of us remember Finch saying it, it's
basically fucking irritating to play this team. You know, and
we had the chant at Home Free. You throw a merchant,
you know, like Sga is good at fucking getting fouls.
He just is. And you know, there's there's a variety
(40:12):
of high level dudes that just get know how to
get fouls and whether they're flopping or not, they just
do and they are but they just they just know
how to do it. Dude. They're just or if you
have a you know, a fourth fall or a fifth
foul or you're one fall away from the bonus. You know,
(40:34):
they know if someone's gonna put their hand there, they're
just gonna they're just gonna rip through and get a
follow easy foul. You know. So it's being like on
focus on, plugged into this. But I will say this,
as we know with this team and especially Ant and
his decision making, we've really thrived with these days off.
(41:00):
You know, I don't know if they'll come out cold
as shit again, I don't know, I mean to be fair,
Like we didn't come out cold against the Lakers Memembory.
We hit with like twenty one threes, you know, so
game one so and some of that is will okay,
see you know, like switch a lot because they're very
(41:25):
confident in their defensive you know players in general, Will
they blitz or will it be more like you know
the old boxes and elbow right feel the like get ready,
So he can't just have a free you know, lane
can't have a free path to the to the who
and they do have some guys that can protect, which
(41:46):
we haven't had in these last two games or two series.
You know, I don't, I don't know. Or if they
go zone right, I mean, why wouldn't you mix in
some zone against our dumbasses at times? Right? I would?
So I think the boxes and elbows where they're really
protecting shit saying you know, we're going to cheat this way,
(42:09):
so you can't just come in mixing the zone. But
also in switching, I think they'll switch a lot. I
think the most common thing they'll do is boxes and
elbows or just switch a lot. It just be confident
that they're a hell of a defensive team. Now, I'm
not saying they'll never blitz him, and because I think
(42:29):
they will, but he we did see an improvement, you
know with that pass through the double and it usually
right right around the elbow, right around the nail free
throw area, right, it was it was the passes like
right there and then it in a lot of times
it's Alexander Walker or somebody else, and they were able to,
(42:52):
you know, keep the ball moving. So I did notice
on the flip side, Denver having success in the zone.
See Mike Conley would probably appreciate some zone. And we've
always we've not always, but we've had a hybrid of
like drop, like Rudy's in drop and everybody else is
(43:13):
like in high wall, you know, like very aggressive. So
we we are very that's the one thing. We're very
We're versatile now on offense and defense, which is something
that you can, you know, you could say we we
haven't been and even the year before Rudy we were
up there. And defense, we're a pretty solid defensive team.
But the style of the high wall and just going
(43:36):
crazy with Vando and everybody running around speaking of boxes
and elbows like but that wasn't sustainable to do for
a whole season or a whole series because it just
wears you the fuck out. So but they're a damn
good off a defensive team. Are they as good as
we were last year? I don't think so. But analytically
(43:59):
they're like the best thing ever. You know, that's what
the computers say. And then you know with Rudy, you know,
will they go small on Rudy to try to hide
somebody or you know, we're on Randall too. You know,
I wonder, I wonder exactly what's gonna happen. There a
(44:22):
lot of people I've heard talking about this throughout the week,
thinking that especially when it's three to two, but just
kind of thinking that, okay, see would win either way.
You know a lot of them talked about Williams will
beyond them, a lot of them. You know, I've heard
a variety. The Randall thing is kind of interesting. I
will say that who is going to guard Randall? I think,
(44:50):
you know, my guess is that it will be Williams.
That's that's who I'm guessing. But I don't know, you know,
And then who's whose ant getna guard? Is he gonna guard? Uh?
You know, maybe you know, is he gonna guard Williams
in the starting lineup? Or would they put him on
(45:15):
like I don't know, someone ran him like like home
Grin or or Dort or you know, that's the thing
they like us with McDaniels, they do have Dort and
so it is nice to be able to have a
guy like dort In, to have a guy like Cruso
to to just be like, you're taking on an ant dude,
(45:37):
that's your job this series. So yeah, it'll be the
matchups will be very interesting to see. I will say this,
Heartenstein has actually played pretty decent against Rudy kind of
going through the games. And it's regular season, right, it's
(45:58):
regular season. We know if any team knows, we know
right that that shit ultimately doesn't matter. I mean, remember
Phoenix just kicked our ass like throughout the year. But
then the last was it the last game of the
season where they just whooped us and then we got
five days off and we're like, all right, cool, we're
(46:20):
gonna sweep you. You know. So the game won. I
think it was right around New Year's okay, see one
one thirteen, one oh five. The Wolves had count them
twenty three turnovers. NA had five Randall and NAS had four.
NAS had a great game up the bench, nineteen points,
(46:41):
but twenty three turnovers. Honestly, you're you're gonna turn the
ball over obviously, but if we're if we can keep
it like below say fourteen or something like that, now,
but we could win a game and you know, have
eighteen of them. But like, as long as we don't
(47:03):
get into that, seventeen eighteen, maybe anywhere from like sixteen
to twenty seventeen to twenty two seventeen sounds like a lot. Yeah,
it is, especially if the team's not turning the ball
over like they tend not to do. But we just
we have to figure that shit out. And this is
(47:25):
where it's a big challenge, you know, for the offensive
as a whole, but especially for and and especially for Randam.
And I would throw in mister we don't, you know,
call a play, mister Finch, because if shit's not going
(47:47):
their way, then we got to tighten up and we
gotta be more we got we gotta be more organized,
however that may be. And literally I just saw a
little you know, they're doing a bunch of interviews, like
press conference stuff with all the players and the coach
and and it's like, well, as long as you play
(48:08):
hard defense, he'll let you do whatever you want on offense.
That's what he said about Finch, And it's fucking true.
And I've always said he gives his players. These players,
not Chris Paul or you know, someone that can like
a maestro of basketball Lebron and Luca and you know,
(48:29):
not those guys. He gives guys that You're like, hey, dude,
what you got a leasha on that thing? Dude, you
need to fucking pull pull that thing in. So, yeah, dude,
if we keep turning the damn ball over, we need
to be more organized, we need to play call, we
need to do something. And so let you know that's
gonna be something. They're Game two one, sixteen to one
(48:52):
oh one. And by the way, getting into point differential,
it was two to two, but point different A lot
of analytics around that stat. You know, I think we
had the series by three. So there you go. We're
gonna win the series because we have a point differential
(49:12):
of three. But in that game, first of all, no Rooty,
no Random, no Dante. Okay, so you had Nas at
the center, McDaniels at the four lot. Jalen Williams played
really well, twenty points eight to seventeen. Okay, see was
seven of twenty nine from three, and we held SGA
(49:37):
to six of twenty one from the field. He did
if you can believe it, he got to the free
throw line. He was eleven of eleven from the free
throw line. Now and on the flip side, we won
the game by fifteen, but he was three or twelve
from three. He did get to the free throw line
ten of eleven, but he was five of eighteen overall,
Like I said, three thirteen or three of twelve from three,
(49:58):
So they didn't should the ball well from three. They're
not great three point shooters on average. I say that,
but they have a game where they hit like eighteen
against us, but actually so game three. So it's one one,
game three, Oklahoma wins. The Oklahoma City wins that one
thirty one twenty three. The Timberwolves did have eighteen threes
(50:25):
in that game. I still think there was no uh,
still think there was no Rudy and uh and Randall
in this one. Nasen and Jaden shined. Those two shined
in this season series. And I think actually, speaking of zone,
(50:51):
I'm pretty sure they got in the zone in the
fourth quarter in that game, because remember that was like
the crazy comeback. I think was twenty four points in
the fourth quarter, twenty five overall. We had been down
in the second quarter of the game four. Oh wait,
hold on, I totally just skip games DENI SGA in
(51:12):
the in the game they won, he was thirteen to
twenty four. I'm talking about Game three, he was thirteen
to twenty four to thirty seven points. He did turn
the ball over five times. They shot fifty nine percent.
And here here's what I was talking about. Nineteen threes
they hit in this game, nineteen and thirty five. Now
we hit eighteen, but and had five turnovers. And maybe
(51:36):
that was the game that they actually win zone on us.
But I believe we went zone in the fourth quarter.
That helped spark that. I think I wrote that down
in some notes there. Yes, that crazy comeback. And this
is game four of the season series. Second quarter thirty
two to seventeen, the thunder right fourth quarter forty one
(51:58):
to nineteen. They made it up all right. There only
thirteen turnovers. Like I said, it was that huge crazy comeback. Naw,
Shannon Dilly, I call Dilly, Rob Dillingham Dilly. They all
did really well, like I said, Nas and Jaden had
(52:20):
some really great games in this season series. So it's
two to two. You know, we we remember Game three
in Game four a lot because we either beat him
or we pushed them without a full squad, and you
know Jay, like I said, Jayden really becoming dependable as
(52:47):
just an overall player, but especially offensively dependable. Not getting
as many falls either, and there's gonna be some games
where he gets the fall problems NAS. And I'd say
NAS probably hasn't those balls. I don't know that for
a fact, but I bet you it's up there for
the playoffs anyway. But but Nas, he had that great
(53:12):
stretch and then he kind of you know, up and
down since then, and he had like that crazy game
was a game won against the Lakers. He actually had
a really good game win I think against Golden State too.
But he just has to tighten up overall. That that's
(53:36):
a big thing. He just has to tighten up overall,
and the team does as well. And I could sit
there and talk about this, talk about that. But when
push comes to shove, man, you know, be smart with
the turnovers, right, and you know, their biggest thing when
(53:57):
you talk about Oklahoma City, we've talked about the on
the NBA podcast that we do here under Ropodove Radio.
A lot of times it's been SGA and then who
the hell's gonna step up? And in the playoffs, you know,
Williams is averaging nineteen points, just a little down from
(54:17):
his season average. You know, he's shooting forty two percent
from the field, shooting twenty four from three. I think
Caruso is their hottest three point shooter, and maybe Wallace.
We're not that great at three point shooting right now either.
(54:38):
But so on the surface, when you look at well
Home gruns At, you know, averaging sixteen points, Hertenstein ten points,
like a cruse of nine door eight, like just but
does he have enough help? In my point, and in
this series with Jalen Williams, like you know, it's been
(55:00):
up and down, Like let's be honest, Like he had
a ten point game, he had a six point game,
he went off in that overtime game that they lost,
he had thirty two points, but then, like I said,
followed up with a ten point game. So and then
I gotta admit this kind of feels like so in
(55:22):
that last series he was sixteen, seventeen, thirty two, ten, eighteen,
six and twenty four right and from three it was
two to nine, three, three of seven, five, two of five,
four and two of five. Some of his shooting just
from the field eleven of twenty one pretty good, five
(55:44):
of twenty, five of fourteen, three of sixteen today, ten
of seventeen. So is he going like it sounds weird,
but Jalen Williams, who is kind of big, but he's
a little skinny. He's six I think he's like six
five six six four six five sixty six somewhere in there.
(56:07):
He's a little thin, but he is long. And you
wonder if they're going to go with him, you know,
on Randall, or they go with one of the bigs
on Randall. And this is gonna be key for both
At and Randall. Can they get off the ball? Can
(56:29):
they involve their teammates. Can they take advantage of matchups
when it's there? That's something Julius has done a phenomenal
job at and to be fair, and has done a
pretty damn good job of getting off the ball early
and Randall and others bringing the ball up and getting
the ball to him in different spots. So, I mean,
(56:55):
do they have enough help? Last year SGA, they had
some good performances but overall not enough. This year it
kind of felt like they weren't gonna have enough, but
they ultimately did. Now I gotta give credit to Denver
for playing excuse me, better defense. Pretty much everybody plays
(57:17):
better defense in the in the playoffs though, but they did.
They were a better defensive team. They found a way
to get some points off their bench. Westbrook, you know,
was either really good or like, what in the fuck
are you doing, dude? You know, it was one of those.
(57:38):
I think his his plus minus was like minus eighty
three or minus I can't remember the name. I can't
remember the number for the series, but it's bad. So
my point is they you know, I talk about how,
you know, Nah and Dante have to fucking wake up
from three, because they do. But we're a deeper team.
(58:05):
But how much deeper really? Though this time around it's
a it's obviously a lot tighter. We we haven't been
playing teams that were that deep. But when you can
bring Caruso and Wiggins and Wallace even that Joe dude,
obviously the other Williams like they are deep too, and
(58:27):
and Caruso is probably there, well, he is their best
bench player. And he's been you know, he's been in
a player, he's been in, he's been around, let's put
it that way. And for being off the bench, he
was in double figures the last four games. Some of
it's just timely, but a lot of signs when they
(58:47):
make it run. You'll see him on the court, you know,
and you know with dort Caros, Caruso, Carrosso in somebody
else that they'll throw at and you know, and just
gotta be baseent man, And you know I'm rambling. Let's
(59:09):
be honest. I'm fucking rambling now. I'm just gonna keep
going over the same old dumb shit I'm talking about.
It's prediction time. I get the Wolves in three, No
Wolves at eleven. I have the TIMBERWL. Okay, so I
(59:30):
still have. I haven't done the research, you know, Like
I said about that tweet about like the largest here,
actually let me pull it up real quick that we're
basically the biggest underdogs of all time. So this comes
from the daily Wolves. Don't quote me on this ship
the thunder of the highest favorite team in NBA Western
(59:53):
Conference Finals history going into their matchup versus the Wolves
highest favored team. Does that mean hold on the highest
favored team? You know how you read something and then
you're like, wait a second, I read that wrong. The
highest favorite Okay, so they the history part got me
(01:00:16):
though I first read it saying, yeah, they are, they've
been the they have the best odds to win the championship.
But this is saying in the history, so they have
the largest gap pass between two teams according to the
(01:00:38):
Daily Wolves. Right, that's fucking crazy, dude. That's like, that's
downright disrespectful dude. Like I said earlier, we did get
a three point margin. Though I mentioned that, No, they
should be favorites. I'm not saying they shouldn't be favorites.
They should now in clutch time, they haven't been as good. Now.
(01:01:01):
I'm not saying they haven't won tight games, because of
course they have. The Game six was really close until
it wasn't right. They won a game. They hit a
couple buckets down the stretch and were able to win
Game five pretty cleanly, but it was a tight game.
(01:01:23):
They lost an overtime game, they lost the first game.
So they haven't been all that great in clutch either
or not. I shouldn't say either because we're four and
oh and clutch. So will that carry over? Are we?
You know, we're playing our the best defensive team in
the league on paper, But there's just something about like
(01:01:46):
when we're disrespected. When we're the underdog, it really bodes
wealth for us. And you know, can we win game
one again? You know, like we have the Memphis series obviously,
last year Denver series, we won the first two games
(01:02:08):
the Lakers series on the road to win the Western
Conference Finals, and I guess become the biggest underdog to
ever win in the Western Conference Final. I don't think
that's true. We will have to win the first one
of the first two games. We're not the best at home,
but we are getting better as we saw now. I
(01:02:30):
said that we lost game one at home with home court, right,
So I think being the underdog, I would tell I
would show aunt that tweet every other hour and be like, dude,
do you realize that we are the lowest rated team
against the highest rated you know what you know? Or
(01:02:50):
the the biggest underdog ever. That's what this fucking tweet says. Man,
So get pissed off now, I'm rambling, like I said. Okay,
So if I think it's it's closer to a fifty
to fifty, then I hear a lot of people saying
seventy thirty. I don't agree with seventy thirty. Sixty forty.
(01:03:12):
You could sell me on I'm closer to like, you know,
like like fifty seven point five. No, I'm I'm closer.
I'm not saying it's fifty to fifty, but I think
it's a lot closer to a fifty to fifty. I
would put a sixty forty in down maybe fifty five
(01:03:33):
forty five whatever, you know. I think that they're an
experienced team now, no doubt. But they you know, they
just got by a team that is not as deep
as us. That team was really banged up, especially, I
(01:03:56):
mean Porter Is. You can't totally lie on him anyway,
but what you can do is get like some big
games out of him, maybe two of them where he'll
just go off right, he'll hit a bunch of threes,
but then other times not as much. We do a
good job against But I think Gordon was such a
(01:04:18):
key and Gordon was hurt. You know, it wasn't much
of a game obviously today. But long story short, I'm
picking the Wolves. I'm picking the Wolves. What I was
trying to say is like it's very like cliche to
be like, dude, it's a tough It's gonna be a
tough series. Just seven games Bro. But if we were
(01:04:41):
to go to Game three one to one, then I
think there's a possibility of closing out Game six. But
this team, I'm gonna say Wolves in seven because of
this team, where we could be up three to two,
you know, going into game six and we're like, yep, dude,
here we go. We're going to the finals, and then
we just get beat, you know, like you mother efforts
(01:05:02):
and then turn right around and play great. You know,
like we lost that first game to Golden State Boom
one four in a row. We saw that, like, you know,
losing to the the B team of Indie and then
playing pretty good, right losing to Milwaukee Boom, turn right
(01:05:25):
around and beat a team in Memphis who was hot
at the time. So yeah, that's my story. I'm sticking
to it. Let's see Tuesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday.
(01:05:45):
I'm trying to think of the next time we're gonna
do a game or a show Monday. Let's see Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
So maybe I'll do it after game four. I don't know,
it'll be next week for sure. I don't like to
(01:06:08):
do it on a on a you know, on a
day where they have a game. Obviously it's it's just
not it's not cool. It's not cool to do. So
I'll be back maybe after like four games. I'm not
solely sure when I'll be back, but I will be back,
(01:06:29):
damn it. Uh maybe Tuesday night, maybe Thursday. Not obviously
not this week, but next week. So within somewhere somewhere
in there, I'm gonna try to do a show. I
wouldn't doubt if it's not this Thursday, but next Thursday.
(01:06:51):
I don't know. As you can see, I'm very confused.
So I'm gonna try to do a show. I'll do
another show before the end of the series, that for sure,
but I'm just gonna try to fit one in. I
may have to do two shows next Tuesday, I don't know.
But either way, enjoy the series and remember, as a fan, dude,
(01:07:11):
we don't want the players doing this because that as
a fan, soak this up, you know, soak it up
like it feels great. Don't get too high and mighty,
don't get too confident. Don't be underwhelming though. Don't be like,
oh we're gonna lose bro, We're down one zip or
you know, we're down fifteen, you know, we're getting our ass.
(01:07:33):
Like this team does bounce back even when it I
mean even when they were winning three, losing three, winning three,
losing three. You know, like this team does have a
lot of fight back. And it feels like they have
more you know, tools to fix the parts. You know,
(01:07:54):
like they have more tools in the in the in
the in the the toolbox. That was bad anyway, I better.
I think that's a sign that you needed to shut
it down. Wolves and seven. Just enjoy it though the
shit doesn't happen much. Enjoy it. I can't believe that
(01:08:15):
shouts out the Kat that he made the Conference final
two and shots out to the Knicks. Dude, they're they're
fun to watch about that Pacers team. Oh boy, I
really like these matchups. By the way, I think the
NBA would want the Knicks in Minnesota because we know
large markets, we know small markets. But people don't know
is there's mid markets TV market and google that NBA
(01:08:40):
TV market and you'll see that we may be perceived
as flyover country in like one of the smallest markets
in the entire country, but we are not. Look at Detroit,
look at Miami, look at some teams that you think,
huh wow, we have more TV homes than them. And
(01:09:02):
that's what it comes down to. NBA TV market. We're
a mid size market and AUNT these last two years
has gotten great ratings. Most of the games these last
two years has improved upon the previous slot from the
previous year. I'm not saying it's you know, New York
(01:09:22):
in LA or obviously Boston LA, because the rivalry and
speaking of rivalry, I mean New York in Indy go
back to the nineties, dude, that shit. Okay, I'm doing
a Minnesota Goodbye. My apologies for people that are listening
to this podcast outside of Minnesota. It's called a Minnesota Goodbye.
(01:09:44):
So let's say you're in a restaurant right and you're talking.
Time you get up, you start talking talking talk, Or
if you're at someone's house, you're at the front door,
you're talking, you're talking to the driveway, you start talking
about the house or the grass or some shit. And
then you're in the car and the shotgun windows rolled
down and you're talking and you're talking. And that's what
I'm doing right now. I'm doing in Minnesota. Goobye. So
(01:10:04):
I'm going to shut this thing down, have a great week.
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