This Episode Features Recap From Game 4 As the OKC Thunder Hold Off The T'wolves to Take a Commanding 3-1 Series Lead. -3rd Qtrs Huge in Game 1 & 2! -OKC Elite Defense. -OKC Offensive Rebounds in Game 4 WTF! -Timberwolves Turnovers Telling Stat! -Can T'Wolves Push Game 6?
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Checkout The Living Loserville PODCAST Available under The ROPE A DOPE RADIO Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon, & More! Follow on Twitter @RopeADopeRadio
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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'm your host, Chris Carlson. Well, it is the podcast
that I did not want to record. I wanted to
record a podcast today today, whatever you look at it,
but it's not the topic or the outcome that we
(00:26):
all wanted as Timberwolves fans. Great game for those watching
from Afar last night. Phenomenal game. Really, it was really
finally they got a competitive game in the series. Of course,
I was very entertaining Game three as a Timberwolves fan,
(00:46):
of course. But yeah, we're gonna talk obviously about last night,
kind of wrap up in a little nutshell, the series
that stands at three to one. The Thunder held off
the Wolves last night. The Betch finally came all the
(01:07):
way through, even more than you could even want or need.
You just sue. But they also, I mean they outscored
the starters, I believe, but Ant and especially Randall just
were inconsistent. Randal more than Ant, But we'll get into that.
(01:30):
Of course, we'll talk about the good, the bad, and
the ugly s g a And and williams Man. They
three out of four games in this series so far,
they played their ass off. So yeah, so we'll start
with the recap and all that, just kind of talk
our way through. Obviously I'm not gonna spend much time
(01:54):
on the first three games, but you know, I haven't
done a show just yet ever since you know, I
did the preview prediction podcasts. So so yeah, like I said,
not the result that Timbrels fans wanted, but we are
finding out a lot about our team. And of course,
(02:18):
you know, you have a lot of nonsense now, whether
it's local or national media saying all sorts of dumb stuff,
right over the top stuff someone posting, you know, something
on Twitter way over the top, or posting something so
therefore trolling, you know, sometimes clearly trolling, so someone will
(02:44):
go over the top in their comment or response. So
we you know, I mean some of the stuff has
been legit out there. Some things that have been said
about Aunt kind of make it scratch your head on
(03:05):
one on one side, kind of like the the family
man thing and the the that Perkins said now off
the court, ant needs to grow up in in some ways,
no doubt about that obviously, right, but the names he
(03:27):
chose Kendrick to to say family men, we're quite interesting. Well,
we'll get to that later in the show. But yeah,
I mean, or you have some folks on the other
side protecting aunt and saying, well, actually, you know, like
(03:49):
as if he doesn't really need to get any better.
You know, I can understand the number of shots he took,
especially in the first half, was pretty eye popping. But
I didn't think he played as garbage as everybody's saying
that said. I don't think he played great or anything either,
(04:12):
But we'll get into it. We'll get into it. If
there's your first time listening to the Living and Loserville podcast, Welcome.
It's under the Ropodope Radio podcast umbrella, which can be
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(04:34):
the Grueling Truth dot com. In Sports News twenty four
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(05:18):
ninety nine for the first month. Okay, So man, that
one last night, boy, that was a heartbreaker. I'm not
gonna lie, not gonna lie, like I said, Drake game,
but just couldn't get over the hump real quick though.
(05:41):
When you look at what Game one and Game two
came down the third quarters, right, the Wolves in Game
one were up forty eight to forty four at half.
I do believe they could have been up by more.
I think if you look at how Okay see close quarters, right.
(06:03):
We talked about the third quarter, of course, but just
closing the quarter each quarter, I think that they that
was a big key for the series. And even you know,
it's tied sixty to sixty in the third quarter midway through,
Okay See goes on a sixteen to six run to
close it out. You know, we gave up way too
(06:28):
much in the mid range those first two games, Sga
and Williams, Jalen Williams just tearing us up. The bench
was struggling. They couldn't they couldn't find a shot, and
very similar in game two, you know, okay, see closed
(06:48):
on like a little spurt to get up by eight,
and although the Wolves definitely fought back and they you know,
they definitely fought back down the stretch considering it was
but once again that third quarter it went from fifty
eight to fifty to ninety three to seventy one, and
(07:11):
they cut it, you know, within range. But you know,
no fourth quarter for Randall in game two. I think
fourth quarter wise, you didn't see Ruty much in game one,
if I remember correctly, the bench started to show some
life late in the fourth quarter. They started to find
(07:34):
something for Ant out of the post as well. And
I thought Game three obviously the blowoup right what was
it thirty four to fourteen or something like that. In
the first quarter. I liked a couple things right. One,
we were using less zone, which I kind of understand
why you had tried to use the zone and games
(07:57):
won in game two more than you did previous because
you know, Denver had who's not a great defensive team.
They had success with it. You know, we didn't. We didn't.
And when you give the mid range to their two
top scorers that easily in a sense, it's probably gonna
(08:22):
be bad news for you. So you did see Rudy
come up more a little bit higher, which disrupted you know,
some things obviously even got some steals and then more
gap held. Right, So defensively, way more gap help you
could see, and in others, you know, helping out with
(08:42):
the second guy, but then all you know, being that
second guy to take away a drive but also scramble
back to your guy if need be. And it was
very effective. You know, if you look at the free
throws in game one, game two for SGA and then
you look at I think it was four, I think
it was four or four in game three, you know
(09:03):
that was a big difference. Also, you saw and you know,
being able to get sometimes even a double screen, not
bringing the ball up as much and having them coming
out of the post or getting the ball in the post.
I thought that was kind of nice. But you know
(09:24):
in Randall bounce back had a great game, YadA, YadA, YadA.
So it's it's like, all right, do you I don't know,
in some ways by by kicking their ass so much
in game three, did we kind of wake up a beast,
you know, like even more like you know, it's one
thing to to respond, but when you get your ass
(09:48):
kicked by forty plus, that's embarrassing. And it was kind
of like, all right, we're gonna find out what, you know,
what Okay sees all about? And we did last night.
We definitely did. Jaden had it going pretty early, had
a nice little N one dunk by chet Chet did
you know, get his reprotribution. Williams started out red hot
(10:12):
two hit some early threes, Randall in and early turnovers.
I think Randall had three or four fairly early, and
just overall. Ok see, at the four to twenty three mark,
was up twenty two to seventeen, and it was already
six to three turnovers, and then they extended this run
(10:35):
to get into twenty seven to twenty a thirteen to
two overall run, and they were already up eight to
four in rebounds and offensive rebounds were just to killer
between turnovers and rebounds last night, my goodness, gracious, So
it was thirty seven to thirty at the end of
the first the three point shot was keeping us in it.
(10:59):
I think we're five to ten in the first Ant
didn't take a shot in general until he got an
end one where he missed the free throw. But you
know the thing is they were like even overly aggressive
beyond the three point line this time, and so I
thought he actually for a while was making the right
(11:22):
pass and at times was really I thought he was
still making the right pass, you know. So I wasn't
freaking way out when he only had one shot in
the first quarter. Sga, you know, bounced right back thirteen
points five to six from the field, and like I said,
(11:42):
Williams was hot right away. But you know, you're shooting
sixty three percent after the first and you're down, you know.
You also, you know, had seven turnovers, so Randall picked
up a pretty quick fall. I think he had like
two turnovers in a short amount of time and then
two fouls. The bench is going crazy though, as we know,
(12:04):
in the second corner, literally twenty to five bench points.
All four players that came up the bench was you know,
definitely contribute, you know, putting in their contributions, contributing greatly.
Shannon came in in like a few minutes, like three minutes,
boomed seven points again, and that was nice to see
(12:25):
him in back to back games do that. And let's
see so somewhere in so it's fit. Okay, sees up
fifty seven to fifty one under five minutes, right, the
rebound count is sixteen to eight and eight sixteen to
(12:48):
half of those were offensive rebounds were okay, see the
bench still going crazy at that time it was thirty
to thirteen. But so at sixty five to fifty seven
and a half, the s ros half thirteen fucking turnovers
at half, I mean, so you're not rebounding the ball,
you can't buy an offensive or a defensive rebound, and
(13:11):
a fair amount of times they were playing good defense
and just couldn't. That's the that's how you shut the
door on a good defensive possession. Though you get the rebound.
And I know it is more difficult at times some
you know in nowadays game because of so many threes
that the ball does come off kind of crazy now more,
but still there's just no excuse for it. At half,
(13:35):
Randall in Ant combined for nine points, and you know
Randall did like it seemed like, you know, he was
turning the ball over early and often. Right then it
did seem like he's like, all right, I'm not going
to force anything, but you could see he was. He
(13:58):
just couldn't get anything to go, whether it was a
driving layup that he's been finishing at a high rate
or just a little step back, a little dribble in,
a little fade, step back, couldn't get it going. And
he definitely had thought along with some other players, but
especially Randall because he just had a horrible game, you know,
and it's been either a really good game or a
(14:18):
bad game. That's two and two now, two really good
games and two really bad games. It felt like he
was frustrated that he wasn't getting the calls. And of
course you're gonna have frustration, but you kind of got
to take it out on the game and channel it.
And I don't think he did a good job of that.
(14:38):
We had Dork getting his fourth fall really early. We're
right in the game at sixty eight sixty four, and
had some silly turnovers, started to kind of sleep walk
at times on defense. I thought little seven er run
kind of midway through pushed the lead to nine. For okay, See,
(15:00):
he nah was going crazy that. I mean, Alexander Walker
had his game. Man. People were saying that that's his
last Target Center game, which you know it could be.
He went off. I mean he was going off. You know,
in like eleven minutes he had fourteen points I think
four or four from three, and there was some really
(15:21):
good ball movement at that time all the way to
the point where I think it was an eleven three run.
We tied it up seventy nine, seventy nine. You could
see Rudy was like he had a really good third quarter.
He was up to I think he had like eight
or ten in that quarter, was getting rebounds and things
were We're looking up you know, now here's the key, okay,
(15:47):
see kept answering the bell even when we tied it up. Boom,
nice little run to get up a little bit. You know,
Dante started really heating up up. But you're looking at
it right. It's with two minutes left of that third quarter.
(16:09):
Chet had a nice spin dunk. It was nineteen to
nine on turnovers. Now the Timberwolves, it was nineteen and
eighteen points out turnovers at that time. But speaking of spin,
like I said, Chet had a nice spin dunk. So
did na Alexander Walker had that spin reverse spin layup.
He's like spun went the other way. But yeah, you
(16:33):
know it just Randall could not get anything to go.
And like I said, he just he just didn't couldn't
really give us much in the fourth quard at all.
He really couldn't. It was ninety to eighty five though,
anyone's game heading into the fourth. They flashed a stat
(16:54):
pretty early in the fourth seventeen offensive rebounds, okay see.
And to give them credit, man, they kept answering. Every
time NASA is making really good hustle plays. We get
it to back to five, they push it out, we
get it a little closer, they push it out to seven.
(17:15):
We got to one O nine, one o six from
Dante in and hitting a three I think, boom. They
put it to one one eleven, one o seven or
something like that. One sixteen, one oh nine. You know
it just they kept answering, and so I give them
a lot of credit because when oka See gets a lead, man,
(17:35):
they're they they're not going to give it up much.
And even if you tie the game like we did,
they just kept pushing it and pushing it, and so
you know, they pushed to one O one sixteen one
O nine with three thirty four left right, and then
we get it all the way, you know, getting it
kind of close boom. They they push it back like
(17:56):
we get it to four, they go back and hit
it twelve foot jumpers and Williams we we uh, we
have a driving layup. That may have been the spin boom.
They come right back with a three. McDaniels makes the layup.
Now mcdania's hit another three, and it was one twenty
three one, and at that time I believe that's when
(18:19):
Alexander kind of hit Oh no, that was that was
the play before actually where Nah got hit in the uh.
I think he got hit in the neck. I think
that was a little bit earlier and they didn't call it.
(18:39):
And you know what's sga hit the hit the jumper
either way, you know, McDaniel's hits that three and it's
one and there's only twenty three seconds left that you're like, dude,
this could happen. You know, we got it the one
(19:00):
twenty five twenty three again say misses the free throw.
You know, Nas hits two free throws that they fall
instead of you know, which makes sense. I know, a
lot of people are like, they should get rid of that. Yeah,
but dude, if it was on the other side, we
think it was smart. You know. So it's with six
(19:22):
seconds left one twenty eight five, Aunt makes a free
throw then purposely misses it. But it's our ball now.
The point one thing, I do feel like there should
have been a point three or something left. I do
think that they they it could have been a little
(19:44):
bit more. But you know, it is what it is.
It is what it is. You gotta give credit where
credit is due. And you know, starting with Randall, you
know five points, you know, one of seven from the field,
didn't hit a three. Ant was he had sixteen points.
(20:07):
A lot of it was in the second half he
was five or thirteen, didn't shoot that well. But really
he was just one of seven from three. And even
when he had some of those big games. I think
he had one game, I think he was like five
of eight, but there was another game where he was
like one of nine from three. So you do need
(20:31):
better play out of Randall, especially but Aunt two, because
he was getting back door at times. I would say
just overall, okay, c came in statistically as the better
defense and they left the series, you know, showing how
they're on that elite level, and they're just more efficient
(20:55):
on offense as well, that's for sure. The attention to detail,
you know, was not on the same level as Okay
se so you know, I you know, they did, like
I said, they did load up way up on Ant
(21:17):
this this game, even more than they had. But yeah, overall,
the Thunder were just more of a cohesive unit on
both sides of the ball. And Sga is just you know,
he's he's more efficient, you know, he's a more efficient
(21:38):
scorer and playmaker than An. He's just more advanced right
now than An. He just did, you know, and it
is what it is, you know, Like I said, I didn't.
I didn't think the start of the game Ant was
was as bad as people were saying. I really didn't.
(21:59):
And that's not just a whole home that's basically what
they were. They were crashing out on him, you know,
they were really trying to make him get rid of
the ball, and I thought he made the right passes early.
Then I thought he could have been a little bit
more aggressive or just knocked down some shots, you know,
I mean, but we were shooting really well and like
(22:22):
I said, the bench went absolutely nuts, you know, and
so one of the odds that we've been looking for
the bench, looking for the bench, please bench show up.
And you saw them really come alive. I think late
second or late fourth quarter of game two, you could see, okay,
there's some life there. And then obviously it carried over
(22:44):
to game three and definitely I mean, like Naz had
eleven points in six boards doing some dirty work. Evincenzo
had twenty one. He was five of eight from three,
had five assists. I talked about Alexander Walker twenty three points,
five of eight. Shannon had nine points off the bench.
So and we hit you know, eighteen threes, we shot
(23:08):
fifty one point two percent. But you know, you did
have twenty one turnovers. You know that adds up, and
they had fourteen and ultimately they ended up with let's see,
well they ended up with nineteen offensive rebounds, which when
(23:33):
you're the bigger team like we are, that needs to
that needs it not happen. Let's put it that way.
So shouts out to the bench. It would have been
nice if they showed up a little bit, you know,
in one of those first two games. Maybe it'd be
two to two right now, but it's not. And if
you look at it, three out of the four games,
(23:53):
like I mentioned Sga and Williams, they just olt laid
our two guys, you know, our two top two guys Randall.
Like I said, every other game was you know, game one,
Game three, very good, very good, great, but just really
bad too in the other two games. Shouts out to
(24:16):
the rookie Terrence Shannon got him for three more years
as long as we exercise the contract that's kind of
built into the rookie contract. So that's a good sign.
The turnovers, man, wow, you know that was bad, you know,
(24:37):
you know when you look at it, like it's just
we just couldn't we just they I think they got
like eleven more possessions than the Wolves, which comes down
to a variety of things. But when you look at
the Timberwolves, they led the game. And this is from
stat muse, Timberwlves led the game and rebounds, assists, points out, turnovers, fash,
(24:59):
break points in the pain, second chance points, free throw
at times, free throw makes field goal percentage, three point
percentage of free throw percentage. And they didn't they didn't
win the game, you know, so I Uh, it's just
it's one of those things. Man. You know, the bench
(25:21):
outscored the starter sixty four to sixty two. That's wild.
You know, this is h Josh Dubao Dubo Timmeroll shot
fifty one point two and made eighteen threes. Before tonight,
teams that shot fifty percent or better from the floor
(25:42):
and made eighteen threes at least eighteen threes. We're fifty
five and zero in the playoffs. I mean, and then
you can even go further. Like I named, all those
things that we led. Teams entering today are entered today,
owen one ninety all time when they have fewer rebounds,
(26:04):
fur assist, all those things I mentioned in the thunder.
Now it's one in one. I mean, it's and when
you look at the three one stuff, when you're up
three to one, ninety five point six times two hundred
(26:26):
and eighty three and thirteen, that's the percentage of coming
back you're gonna If you're up three to one, there's
a ninety five point six percent chance you're going to
close it out. The last three to one non bubble.
For some odd reason they put the non bubble in there.
(26:47):
I was gonna say, wait a second. It was Cleveland
in the finals in twenty sixteen, a career high for
Jalen Jalen Williams Uh. You know, he thirty four points
career high in the playoffs, Shay was forty ten and nine.
He becomes the fifth player in the NBA history to
(27:09):
record that in the conference final.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And you're looking at it, like I said, you're looking
at it sometimes and you're you're like, dude, we're shooting
sixty eight percent to fifty eight percent, but yet we're
down Charlie Walton at half.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
There was a there was a five thirty two mark
right the last field goal came at five thirty two
in that second quarter. You know, it just it just
it was frustrating. You know, it was a frustrating night overall.
(27:44):
When it came to the end of the game. You know,
the most assist in the playoffs, the most points for SGA.
You know, it is what it is all time. When okay,
he's up three to one in this wait, okay, see
is up three to one in the serieses is al
(28:04):
Horton in elimination games Minnesota's eight and twelve, and you know,
could they force a game six? I mean they could, right,
they could. We're a really good road team, although okay,
SE's phenomenal at home and this last one may have
(28:29):
you know, broke the will, you know what I mean?
And so could they force it and show some pride?
Yeah they could, they could. But it's like I was
about to say, well on some hot shooting, maybe they go, well, shit,
we were pretty hot the last two games. Last game,
you know, Game four, we were hot as shit, you know.
(28:52):
So it's like, you know, so, I mean they could
and come back game six and you win that. You
never know what happens, right, It could happen. It could happen,
But I don't know if it's gonna I really I
don't believe it will. I'm obviously on the side of
(29:14):
it probably won't, probably won't happen, But would I be shocked.
This team has surprised us, you know, the way it started.
I think there are eight and eight and ten. We've
talked about this. It took them a while, obviously to
fit the new pieces in there. And you know, once
Dante figured it out, he got hurt, and same with Randall,
(29:39):
and so it was kind of poor timing for that.
But Randall and both of them really did figure it
out even more when they got to see and look
what the team needed and you know what they can do,
and and they made a lot of you know, odds
are or odds wise, we were a big underdog in
(29:59):
this series. I thought we were a little bit too
big of an underdog. I have a plus two ninety
bet on the series, just because I saw one website
had it up to plus three thirty. Now Vegas generally
knows what they're talking about, right in these betting sites
and all that. It is what it is, right, But
(30:20):
when you look at it, like no one thought midway
through the season that they were going to make the
conference finals, right, I think they closed seventeen and four.
But you did have to kind of look at that
and say, well, they're playing positive. It looked they looked
the part of that team that were that was in
(30:41):
the top ten of our offense and defense, and they
looked that part. But you did have to look at
they still had the Milwaukee debacle. They still lost to
Indye without their starters or most of the you know,
too many of the starters out to lose the game,
and they just weren't beating that many quality teams down
(31:03):
the stretch, so make it into the Technically, they were
an underdog against the Lakers. You know Curry, that would
have been a longer series of Curry played. So you know,
I think they made some major strides, so I wouldn't
be surprised if they try to lean into this team again.
(31:24):
You look and say, well, Alexander Walker, out of all
the free agents, is probably the most expendable because of Shannon,
because of Clark. Offensively, you know, getting a bang from
Dillingham in the next three years. So we have Dillingham
and Shannon, who obviously were rookies this year. They have
(31:48):
three years left on their contract as long as you
exercise it, and if they developed, there's no reason they
won't exercise that, right And Clark has one year on
his deal and wouldn't be hard to retain, right Whereas
I think I want Alexander Walker back, Don't get me wrong,
but I think someone's gonna throw some money at him,
(32:08):
kind of like Kyle Anderson, where you're like, someone's gonna
give him money, dude, and just give him more playing
time now, Randal and NOAs we'll see. You know, they
got a decision to make this whole trade. We're gonna
find out if the trade was really about money or
(32:31):
if they could get more bang for their buck doing
the trade, right, Because theoretically speaking, you wouldn't say Nas
played himself into more money in the playoffs, where I
think you would say that about Randall. But in the
next the next two to three years, if you look
(32:53):
at what Cat's gonna make, and if you could get
those two for a out that money, that'd be a
pretty damn good deal, right, if you could get Randall
in Nas, it's really up to you know. I think
Randall will resign. I do believe noswill. Maybe someone was
(33:16):
willing to give him a bigger contract, But if it's
a bigger contract, it's probably gonna be a pretty bad,
too subpar team, So we'll see, you know. But I
could also see him wanting to start, like, hey, I
want to start someplace, you know. But if his contract,
(33:40):
if someone is willing to give him a lot of money,
it might be a sign in trade, you know. And
if if you look at Randall, you know, he's at
a different stage of his career. He's already in his thirties,
and I think he's got at least a few years
of prime. Maybe it's two, maybe it's three. Maybe it's
a little bit more stuff to say. But if the trade,
(34:05):
because you know a lot of people say it was
the constraints. You know, when you go to try to
make a trade in the future, shit, you can be
over the you know, there's all sorts of like if
you're over the second apron twice in a row, that
hurts you even more. If you're over the apron, you
(34:25):
can't even trade your first round pick. There's a lot
of constraints. And so we're gonna find out because remember
Conley and Finch both said this wasn't about money. But
like I said, if you can fit you know, from
the fifty five to sixty million range, fifty three to
(34:49):
fifty eight or let's say fifty to sixty somewhere in there, right,
if you can fit two players in there, well then
that's fucking good. And you got Devincenzo off of it,
and you got a first round pick. The fact that
our first round picks haven't hurt us. With Rudy, we
just had to this. We were able to get to
(35:10):
this last go round, and it feels like at least
one's gonna pay off with Shannon. If not doing you know,
we'll see. You know, I'm not gonna go. I think
it's too far to do the offseason recap right now.
It's it's just it's too premature or you know, the draft,
(35:32):
or could there be a trade on Draft night or whatever.
You know, we'll see. I don't want to go too
deep into it. I'll say this though, if in fact
they just lose Game five, loose you know tomorrow night,
I'm not gonna do a recap on Game five, right
(35:53):
I'll let some time go, and then as we get
closer to the draft and free agency, then I'll do
a show and really this stuff down because there's a
lot of good questions out there. There's a lot of
questions that need to be answered. You know. Of course,
I'd believe in Finch in the short term, no doubt
(36:18):
right now. Long term, is he the best offensive coach
for ANT? Is he the best offensive coach for ANT
using Rudy or just using Rudy like they did in Utah?
Now some of that can be answered. I don't I
(36:39):
don't think he's necessarily the best coach offensively, Like the
the fit, the flow fit for ANT. I gotta admit
I think Ant is a limited playmaker and he's gonna
be going into year six, and of course you'll get
better and better and better and better. But there are
some things that if you naturally grow up being more
(37:04):
of a point guard or a playmaker, that you just
have when you come in the league. So when you
enter year six, of course you're gonna get better, break
it down defenses and all that. But I think by
through five years, I think, like, I think he's limited
(37:27):
as a playmaker, and I don't think he'll improve massively.
You know, I think we've seen some jumps, but night
in and night out, game in and game out, you know,
I still wonder if he's ever like, is he gonna
So he's twenty three right now, so the next ten years,
let's say, is he gonna have is he consistently gonna
(37:49):
average seven seven and a half, you know, anyway from
like six to eight assists? You know, could he average
seven and a half assist for like or over seven
a six for five straight years? I don't know. I
don't think so. But on this team, you know, point
randall point forward, he could be over five and could
(38:09):
be over five. Conley Dante could be over five in
say Mcconnlelly, do you next year do you lean into
Dante more and bring Conley off the bench. So there's
a lot to talk about. But I do think being
that this is the first year you have a core
(38:30):
and this is the first year on your new team
that you made a gigantic trade for, do you try
to just lean into this team the next few years?
And really the only piece that I think about trading,
whether it's now or in the coming years, would be Ruby.
I would love them, love for them to lean all
(38:51):
the way into this team. And so we will get
to see if this was all about the second apron
or the salary cap and they want to cut. We're
gonna find out. I said that last you know, I
said that when we did the show after the trade, like,
we're gonna find out this offseason. If that trade was
about money, I should say about saving money, because of
(39:15):
course it's about money. It's a seller cap, right, But
like I said, if you can fit those two in
and hop Dante in a first round pick, you know,
obviously the trade worked for both sides, right, But in
the end, it would make more sense to be able
(39:35):
to have Randall en nos In Dante in a first
round pick rather than just Cat. Obviously, right now, you
could say in some ways Cat fits better than Randall
for aunt because he can stretch. You know he can stretch.
But then again, there's times we just know he's about
(40:00):
power forward random So I don't, you know, I started
kind of touching upon this. I don't want to give
my full opinion on it because there's a lot, you know,
that's going to take place. And like I said, I'm
not saying maybe we should move on from Finch or something.
People are saying that left and right. I think that's ridiculous,
you know. But as far as the national media and
(40:26):
some people were kind of pissed at Ant, one of
his quotes was, I made the right play all night,
so I didn't really look at it and struggled. I
didn't get enough shots to say I struggled. I didn't
struggle at all. I thought he struggled some. You don't
have five turnos or if you're not struggling some. So
some people got pretty mad at that. Though. Here's Kendrick
(40:49):
Perkins though about AMP. He said, you gotta check the
boxes when you're the face of the league, Bird, Magic
and j Obi, Shacqu Lebron, Steph they were all family men.
They all were married with kids. Okay, so did married
with kids ever really come into like Bird? Like did
(41:12):
you think man Bird's a great family man. I didn't
really know shit about Bird when I was a kid.
Magic love me some Magic. He was the first professional
basketball player I fell in love with. That was my
guy right still as obviously, but would you would you
(41:33):
classify like he's a family man now but in his
playing days to classify and I love me some Magic,
but to classify Magic as a family man, I mean okay?
And then Kobe, I mean he got got cheating and
(41:56):
narked on Shack who was cheating. You know, we know
locally in Minneapolis that Shaq was cheating with Courtney James girlfriend,
which I'm not trying to make light of because he
did hit her with a telephone book, which is fucked up, right,
I'm not making light of that. But to say Shaq
(42:16):
was this big family man now, Stephan, Lebron, shirt Kobe
or MJ, Yeah yeah, he had a clean cut image.
He sure as hell. MJ wouldn't have a clean cut
image nowadays, though, if you know that information would get
out about him in gambling and all this shit, right,
(42:38):
he wouldn't have a clean cut then. I mean he
punched what three of his point guards in practice, So
I mean, you know, I wish he would just say
what he means, and you cannot, you know, the whole
(43:00):
I'm gonna pay my child support off straight up, and
I don't want anything to do with the kid. Why
don't you just say that? Why don't you just say
that's fucked up? Don't don't beat around the bush with
some dumb shit talking about Magic was a family man,
bro Like, oh was he? Come on? I love Magic?
Kobe was a family man. His daughters loved him. Rip,
(43:22):
but family man. I mean he was on trial during
the season. No, he for cheating though it was a
bullshit trial. Of course he didn't rape her, but he
was cheating though, you know, So I don't know. And
then you have like Mackie going the other way right
where he's like you know, aunt led you know the
(43:45):
Wolves back to back conference, you know, appearances age twenty
two and twenty three, and Curry didn't get there till
twenty six. Johannis didn't get there till twenty you know,
like he yokicch and Lebron. Even Lebron didn't make his
second Eastern Conference final until twenty four, but he went
to the finals. And he said, in fairness, he went
(44:07):
to the finals. But it's about your team too, you know,
Lebron carried that team. And to even have a sentence
he didn't make a second conference final until he was
twenty four. Why even put that if you're you know,
the first title at twenty seven, Jordan at twenty seven, dude,
(44:30):
it's your team. Is how far you go on average?
Like I said, KG guys in the conference final, you know,
one time with us. But he was an MVP of
the league the year before or that year he could
have been. Sorry, the year before, he was literally a
(44:50):
top three player in the fucking league. So when you
when you protect him that way too, that's silly too,
because it's all about who you got around. Yeah, I
mean just ask MJ. Before they won, you know, he
kept getting beat they. I don't think they ever even
beat Boston in this one game. Now, is that because
(45:15):
Jordan sucked? No, it's because his team wasn't as good
and then once his team got good, he had to
figure out to involve them more. So, you know, I
brought up some questions that we will find answers to,
whether it's during free agency, like I said, Draft night, whatever,
(45:36):
but I will do a show leading up to that,
right and you know, over the next little bit we'll
find out, you know, even exit interviews, where's everybody's head at.
You know, sometimes that allows you to to kind of know,
but with Conley, you never know, right. But I'd say,
(46:00):
you know, I'd be happy if they leaned into this
team as much as they could bring back Nods, bring
back Randall. But like I said, we're gonna we're gonna
find out. We're gonna find out if that trade was
about saving money or about flexibility and get more bang
for your buck. Anyway, if they do force a Game six,
(46:25):
I'll probably do a show then, like after, to see
how the series went after that. I hope they Obviously
I'd love them for them to come back, but it'd
be nice for them to win one more game and
get it back to have that. You never know what
(46:46):
happens tonight, you know, Game six. But anyway, I'm gonna
get out of here. It's not all gloom and doom.
It does feel like last night was the best chance
to win in the series, obviously, because he would have
evened it up, put the pressure on Okay see, but
it didn't happen. It is what it is. I'm gonna
(47:08):
get out of here, enjoy the rest of the week.
Let's hope they get a dub on Wednesday. If not,
like I said, I'm not going to do a post
game five show, and I'll just in a few weeks
as the draft, maybe like a month from now, I'll
(47:29):
do a show and hopefully I have Aaron and some others
maybe to kind of have a roundtable talking about what
they should do with their offseason in what they you know, predictions,
what what they what we think is gonna happen, YadA, YadA, YadA. Anyway,
I'm gonna get out of here. Yeah. Piece
Minnesota basketball fans. Welcome back to the Living and Loserville Podcast.
I'm your host, Chris Carlson. Well, it is the podcast
that I did not want to record. I wanted to
record a podcast today today, whatever you look at it,
but it's not the topic or the outcome that we
(00:26):
all wanted as Timberwolves fans. Great game for those watching
from Afar last night. Phenomenal game. Really, it was really
finally they got a competitive game in the series. Of course,
I was very entertaining Game three as a Timberwolves fan,
(00:46):
of course. But yeah, we're gonna talk obviously about last night,
kind of wrap up in a little nutshell, the series
that stands at three to one. The Thunder held off
the Wolves last night. The Betch finally came all the
(01:07):
way through, even more than you could even want or need.
You just sue. But they also, I mean they outscored
the starters, I believe, but Ant and especially Randall just
were inconsistent. Randal more than Ant, But we'll get into that.
(01:30):
Of course, we'll talk about the good, the bad, and
the ugly s g a And and williams Man. They
three out of four games in this series so far,
they played their ass off. So yeah, so we'll start
with the recap and all that, just kind of talk
our way through. Obviously I'm not gonna spend much time
(01:54):
on the first three games, but you know, I haven't
done a show just yet ever since you know, I
did the preview prediction podcasts. So so yeah, like I said,
not the result that Timbrels fans wanted, but we are
finding out a lot about our team. And of course,
(02:18):
you know, you have a lot of nonsense now, whether
it's local or national media saying all sorts of dumb stuff,
right over the top stuff someone posting, you know, something
on Twitter way over the top, or posting something so
therefore trolling, you know, sometimes clearly trolling, so someone will
(02:44):
go over the top in their comment or response. So
we you know, I mean some of the stuff has
been legit out there. Some things that have been said
about Aunt kind of make it scratch your head on
(03:05):
one on one side, kind of like the the family
man thing and the the that Perkins said now off
the court, ant needs to grow up in in some ways,
no doubt about that obviously, right, but the names he
(03:27):
chose Kendrick to to say family men, we're quite interesting. Well,
we'll get to that later in the show. But yeah,
I mean, or you have some folks on the other
side protecting aunt and saying, well, actually, you know, like
(03:49):
as if he doesn't really need to get any better.
You know, I can understand the number of shots he took,
especially in the first half, was pretty eye popping. But
I didn't think he played as garbage as everybody's saying
that said. I don't think he played great or anything either,
(04:12):
But we'll get into it. We'll get into it. If
there's your first time listening to the Living and Loserville podcast, Welcome.
It's under the Ropodope Radio podcast umbrella, which can be
found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio,
and more. While you're at it, head on over to
(04:34):
the Grueling Truth dot com. In Sports News twenty four
one more thing From DirecTV Stream, you can start streaming
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Whether you're streaming on the go with your smartphone or
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(04:56):
wherever you want it. They do have that five day
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talked about that fifty nine ninety nine for the first month,
that includes Fan Duel and SEC Network. The Ultimate Package,
which includes over one hundred and sixty channels, eighty nine
(05:18):
ninety nine for the first month. Okay, So man, that
one last night, boy, that was a heartbreaker. I'm not
gonna lie, not gonna lie, like I said, Drake game,
but just couldn't get over the hump real quick though.
(05:41):
When you look at what Game one and Game two
came down the third quarters, right, the Wolves in Game
one were up forty eight to forty four at half.
I do believe they could have been up by more.
I think if you look at how Okay see close quarters, right.
(06:03):
We talked about the third quarter, of course, but just
closing the quarter each quarter, I think that they that
was a big key for the series. And even you know,
it's tied sixty to sixty in the third quarter midway through,
Okay See goes on a sixteen to six run to
close it out. You know, we gave up way too
(06:28):
much in the mid range those first two games, Sga
and Williams, Jalen Williams just tearing us up. The bench
was struggling. They couldn't they couldn't find a shot, and
very similar in game two, you know, okay, see closed
(06:48):
on like a little spurt to get up by eight,
and although the Wolves definitely fought back and they you know,
they definitely fought back down the stretch considering it was
but once again that third quarter it went from fifty
eight to fifty to ninety three to seventy one, and
(07:11):
they cut it, you know, within range. But you know,
no fourth quarter for Randall in game two. I think
fourth quarter wise, you didn't see Ruty much in game one,
if I remember correctly, the bench started to show some
life late in the fourth quarter. They started to find
(07:34):
something for Ant out of the post as well. And
I thought Game three obviously the blowoup right what was
it thirty four to fourteen or something like that. In
the first quarter. I liked a couple things right. One,
we were using less zone, which I kind of understand
why you had tried to use the zone and games
(07:57):
won in game two more than you did previous because
you know, Denver had who's not a great defensive team.
They had success with it. You know, we didn't. We didn't.
And when you give the mid range to their two
top scorers that easily in a sense, it's probably gonna
(08:22):
be bad news for you. So you did see Rudy
come up more a little bit higher, which disrupted you know,
some things obviously even got some steals and then more
gap held. Right, So defensively, way more gap help you
could see, and in others, you know, helping out with
(08:42):
the second guy, but then all you know, being that
second guy to take away a drive but also scramble
back to your guy if need be. And it was
very effective. You know, if you look at the free
throws in game one, game two for SGA and then
you look at I think it was four, I think
it was four or four in game three, you know
(09:03):
that was a big difference. Also, you saw and you know,
being able to get sometimes even a double screen, not
bringing the ball up as much and having them coming
out of the post or getting the ball in the post.
I thought that was kind of nice. But you know
(09:24):
in Randall bounce back had a great game, YadA, YadA, YadA.
So it's it's like, all right, do you I don't know,
in some ways by by kicking their ass so much
in game three, did we kind of wake up a beast,
you know, like even more like you know, it's one
thing to to respond, but when you get your ass
(09:48):
kicked by forty plus, that's embarrassing. And it was kind
of like, all right, we're gonna find out what, you know,
what Okay sees all about? And we did last night.
We definitely did. Jaden had it going pretty early, had
a nice little N one dunk by chet Chet did
you know, get his reprotribution. Williams started out red hot
(10:12):
two hit some early threes, Randall in and early turnovers.
I think Randall had three or four fairly early, and
just overall. Ok see, at the four to twenty three mark,
was up twenty two to seventeen, and it was already
six to three turnovers, and then they extended this run
(10:35):
to get into twenty seven to twenty a thirteen to
two overall run, and they were already up eight to
four in rebounds and offensive rebounds were just to killer
between turnovers and rebounds last night, my goodness, gracious, So
it was thirty seven to thirty at the end of
the first the three point shot was keeping us in it.
(10:59):
I think we're five to ten in the first Ant
didn't take a shot in general until he got an
end one where he missed the free throw. But you
know the thing is they were like even overly aggressive
beyond the three point line this time, and so I
thought he actually for a while was making the right
(11:22):
pass and at times was really I thought he was
still making the right pass, you know. So I wasn't
freaking way out when he only had one shot in
the first quarter. Sga, you know, bounced right back thirteen
points five to six from the field, and like I said,
(11:42):
Williams was hot right away. But you know, you're shooting
sixty three percent after the first and you're down, you know.
You also, you know, had seven turnovers, so Randall picked
up a pretty quick fall. I think he had like
two turnovers in a short amount of time and then
two fouls. The bench is going crazy though, as we know,
(12:04):
in the second corner, literally twenty to five bench points.
All four players that came up the bench was you know,
definitely contribute, you know, putting in their contributions, contributing greatly.
Shannon came in in like a few minutes, like three minutes,
boomed seven points again, and that was nice to see
(12:25):
him in back to back games do that. And let's
see so somewhere in so it's fit. Okay, sees up
fifty seven to fifty one under five minutes, right, the
rebound count is sixteen to eight and eight sixteen to
(12:48):
half of those were offensive rebounds were okay, see the
bench still going crazy at that time it was thirty
to thirteen. But so at sixty five to fifty seven
and a half, the s ros half thirteen fucking turnovers
at half, I mean, so you're not rebounding the ball,
you can't buy an offensive or a defensive rebound, and
(13:11):
a fair amount of times they were playing good defense
and just couldn't. That's the that's how you shut the
door on a good defensive possession. Though you get the rebound.
And I know it is more difficult at times some
you know in nowadays game because of so many threes
that the ball does come off kind of crazy now more,
but still there's just no excuse for it. At half,
(13:35):
Randall in Ant combined for nine points, and you know
Randall did like it seemed like, you know, he was
turning the ball over early and often. Right then it
did seem like he's like, all right, I'm not going
to force anything, but you could see he was. He
(13:58):
just couldn't get anything to go, whether it was a
driving layup that he's been finishing at a high rate
or just a little step back, a little dribble in,
a little fade, step back, couldn't get it going. And
he definitely had thought along with some other players, but
especially Randall because he just had a horrible game, you know,
and it's been either a really good game or a
(14:18):
bad game. That's two and two now, two really good
games and two really bad games. It felt like he
was frustrated that he wasn't getting the calls. And of
course you're gonna have frustration, but you kind of got
to take it out on the game and channel it.
And I don't think he did a good job of that.
(14:38):
We had Dork getting his fourth fall really early. We're
right in the game at sixty eight sixty four, and
had some silly turnovers, started to kind of sleep walk
at times on defense. I thought little seven er run
kind of midway through pushed the lead to nine. For okay, See,
(15:00):
he nah was going crazy that. I mean, Alexander Walker
had his game. Man. People were saying that that's his
last Target Center game, which you know it could be.
He went off. I mean he was going off. You know,
in like eleven minutes he had fourteen points I think
four or four from three, and there was some really
(15:21):
good ball movement at that time all the way to
the point where I think it was an eleven three run.
We tied it up seventy nine, seventy nine. You could
see Rudy was like he had a really good third quarter.
He was up to I think he had like eight
or ten in that quarter, was getting rebounds and things
were We're looking up you know, now here's the key, okay,
(15:47):
see kept answering the bell even when we tied it up. Boom,
nice little run to get up a little bit. You know,
Dante started really heating up up. But you're looking at
it right. It's with two minutes left of that third quarter.
(16:09):
Chet had a nice spin dunk. It was nineteen to
nine on turnovers. Now the Timberwolves, it was nineteen and
eighteen points out turnovers at that time. But speaking of spin,
like I said, Chet had a nice spin dunk. So
did na Alexander Walker had that spin reverse spin layup.
He's like spun went the other way. But yeah, you
(16:33):
know it just Randall could not get anything to go.
And like I said, he just he just didn't couldn't
really give us much in the fourth quard at all.
He really couldn't. It was ninety to eighty five though,
anyone's game heading into the fourth. They flashed a stat
(16:54):
pretty early in the fourth seventeen offensive rebounds, okay see.
And to give them credit, man, they kept answering. Every
time NASA is making really good hustle plays. We get
it to back to five, they push it out, we
get it a little closer, they push it out to seven.
(17:15):
We got to one O nine, one o six from
Dante in and hitting a three I think, boom. They
put it to one one eleven, one o seven or
something like that. One sixteen, one oh nine. You know
it just they kept answering, and so I give them
a lot of credit because when oka See gets a lead, man,
(17:35):
they're they they're not going to give it up much.
And even if you tie the game like we did,
they just kept pushing it and pushing it, and so
you know, they pushed to one O one sixteen one
O nine with three thirty four left right, and then
we get it all the way, you know, getting it
kind of close boom. They they push it back like
(17:56):
we get it to four, they go back and hit
it twelve foot jumpers and Williams we we uh, we
have a driving layup. That may have been the spin boom.
They come right back with a three. McDaniels makes the layup.
Now mcdania's hit another three, and it was one twenty
three one, and at that time I believe that's when
(18:19):
Alexander kind of hit Oh no, that was that was
the play before actually where Nah got hit in the uh.
I think he got hit in the neck. I think
that was a little bit earlier and they didn't call it.
(18:39):
And you know what's sga hit the hit the jumper
either way, you know, McDaniel's hits that three and it's
one and there's only twenty three seconds left that you're like, dude,
this could happen. You know, we got it the one
(19:00):
twenty five twenty three again say misses the free throw.
You know, Nas hits two free throws that they fall
instead of you know, which makes sense. I know, a
lot of people are like, they should get rid of that. Yeah,
but dude, if it was on the other side, we
think it was smart. You know. So it's with six
(19:22):
seconds left one twenty eight five, Aunt makes a free
throw then purposely misses it. But it's our ball now.
The point one thing, I do feel like there should
have been a point three or something left. I do
think that they they it could have been a little
(19:44):
bit more. But you know, it is what it is.
It is what it is. You gotta give credit where
credit is due. And you know, starting with Randall, you
know five points, you know, one of seven from the field,
didn't hit a three. Ant was he had sixteen points.
(20:07):
A lot of it was in the second half he
was five or thirteen, didn't shoot that well. But really
he was just one of seven from three. And even
when he had some of those big games. I think
he had one game, I think he was like five
of eight, but there was another game where he was
like one of nine from three. So you do need
(20:31):
better play out of Randall, especially but Aunt two, because
he was getting back door at times. I would say
just overall, okay, c came in statistically as the better
defense and they left the series, you know, showing how
they're on that elite level, and they're just more efficient
(20:55):
on offense as well, that's for sure. The attention to detail,
you know, was not on the same level as Okay
se so you know, I you know, they did, like
I said, they did load up way up on Ant
(21:17):
this this game, even more than they had. But yeah, overall,
the Thunder were just more of a cohesive unit on
both sides of the ball. And Sga is just you know,
he's he's more efficient, you know, he's a more efficient
(21:38):
scorer and playmaker than An. He's just more advanced right
now than An. He just did, you know, and it
is what it is, you know, Like I said, I didn't.
I didn't think the start of the game Ant was
was as bad as people were saying. I really didn't.
(21:59):
And that's not just a whole home that's basically what
they were. They were crashing out on him, you know,
they were really trying to make him get rid of
the ball, and I thought he made the right passes early.
Then I thought he could have been a little bit
more aggressive or just knocked down some shots, you know,
I mean, but we were shooting really well and like
(22:22):
I said, the bench went absolutely nuts, you know, and
so one of the odds that we've been looking for
the bench, looking for the bench, please bench show up.
And you saw them really come alive. I think late
second or late fourth quarter of game two, you could see, okay,
there's some life there. And then obviously it carried over
(22:44):
to game three and definitely I mean, like Naz had
eleven points in six boards doing some dirty work. Evincenzo
had twenty one. He was five of eight from three,
had five assists. I talked about Alexander Walker twenty three points,
five of eight. Shannon had nine points off the bench.
So and we hit you know, eighteen threes, we shot
(23:08):
fifty one point two percent. But you know, you did
have twenty one turnovers. You know that adds up, and
they had fourteen and ultimately they ended up with let's see,
well they ended up with nineteen offensive rebounds, which when
(23:33):
you're the bigger team like we are, that needs to
that needs it not happen. Let's put it that way.
So shouts out to the bench. It would have been
nice if they showed up a little bit, you know,
in one of those first two games. Maybe it'd be
two to two right now, but it's not. And if
you look at it, three out of the four games,
(23:53):
like I mentioned Sga and Williams, they just olt laid
our two guys, you know, our two top two guys Randall.
Like I said, every other game was you know, game one,
Game three, very good, very good, great, but just really
bad too in the other two games. Shouts out to
(24:16):
the rookie Terrence Shannon got him for three more years
as long as we exercise the contract that's kind of
built into the rookie contract. So that's a good sign.
The turnovers, man, wow, you know that was bad, you know,
(24:37):
you know when you look at it, like it's just
we just couldn't we just they I think they got
like eleven more possessions than the Wolves, which comes down
to a variety of things. But when you look at
the Timberwolves, they led the game. And this is from
stat muse, Timberwlves led the game and rebounds, assists, points out, turnovers, fash,
(24:59):
break points in the pain, second chance points, free throw
at times, free throw makes field goal percentage, three point
percentage of free throw percentage. And they didn't they didn't
win the game, you know, so I Uh, it's just
it's one of those things. Man. You know, the bench
(25:21):
outscored the starter sixty four to sixty two. That's wild.
You know, this is h Josh Dubao Dubo Timmeroll shot
fifty one point two and made eighteen threes. Before tonight,
teams that shot fifty percent or better from the floor
(25:42):
and made eighteen threes at least eighteen threes. We're fifty
five and zero in the playoffs. I mean, and then
you can even go further. Like I named, all those
things that we led. Teams entering today are entered today,
owen one ninety all time when they have fewer rebounds,
(26:04):
fur assist, all those things I mentioned in the thunder.
Now it's one in one. I mean, it's and when
you look at the three one stuff, when you're up
three to one, ninety five point six times two hundred
(26:26):
and eighty three and thirteen, that's the percentage of coming
back you're gonna If you're up three to one, there's
a ninety five point six percent chance you're going to
close it out. The last three to one non bubble.
For some odd reason they put the non bubble in there.
(26:47):
I was gonna say, wait a second. It was Cleveland
in the finals in twenty sixteen, a career high for
Jalen Jalen Williams Uh. You know, he thirty four points
career high in the playoffs, Shay was forty ten and nine.
He becomes the fifth player in the NBA history to
(27:09):
record that in the conference final.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And you're looking at it, like I said, you're looking
at it sometimes and you're you're like, dude, we're shooting
sixty eight percent to fifty eight percent, but yet we're
down Charlie Walton at half.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
There was a there was a five thirty two mark
right the last field goal came at five thirty two
in that second quarter. You know, it just it just
it was frustrating. You know, it was a frustrating night overall.
(27:44):
When it came to the end of the game. You know,
the most assist in the playoffs, the most points for SGA.
You know, it is what it is all time. When okay,
he's up three to one in this wait, okay, see
is up three to one in the serieses is al
(28:04):
Horton in elimination games Minnesota's eight and twelve, and you know,
could they force a game six? I mean they could, right,
they could. We're a really good road team, although okay,
SE's phenomenal at home and this last one may have
(28:29):
you know, broke the will, you know what I mean?
And so could they force it and show some pride?
Yeah they could, they could. But it's like I was
about to say, well on some hot shooting, maybe they go, well, shit,
we were pretty hot the last two games. Last game,
you know, Game four, we were hot as shit, you know.
(28:52):
So it's like, you know, so, I mean they could
and come back game six and you win that. You
never know what happens, right, It could happen. It could happen,
But I don't know if it's gonna I really I
don't believe it will. I'm obviously on the side of
(29:14):
it probably won't, probably won't happen, But would I be shocked.
This team has surprised us, you know, the way it started.
I think there are eight and eight and ten. We've
talked about this. It took them a while, obviously to
fit the new pieces in there. And you know, once
Dante figured it out, he got hurt, and same with Randall,
(29:39):
and so it was kind of poor timing for that.
But Randall and both of them really did figure it
out even more when they got to see and look
what the team needed and you know what they can do,
and and they made a lot of you know, odds
are or odds wise, we were a big underdog in
(29:59):
this series. I thought we were a little bit too
big of an underdog. I have a plus two ninety
bet on the series, just because I saw one website
had it up to plus three thirty. Now Vegas generally
knows what they're talking about, right in these betting sites
and all that. It is what it is, right, But
(30:20):
when you look at it, like no one thought midway
through the season that they were going to make the
conference finals, right, I think they closed seventeen and four.
But you did have to kind of look at that
and say, well, they're playing positive. It looked they looked
the part of that team that were that was in
(30:41):
the top ten of our offense and defense, and they
looked that part. But you did have to look at
they still had the Milwaukee debacle. They still lost to
Indye without their starters or most of the you know,
too many of the starters out to lose the game,
and they just weren't beating that many quality teams down
(31:03):
the stretch, so make it into the Technically, they were
an underdog against the Lakers. You know Curry, that would
have been a longer series of Curry played. So you know,
I think they made some major strides, so I wouldn't
be surprised if they try to lean into this team again.
(31:24):
You look and say, well, Alexander Walker, out of all
the free agents, is probably the most expendable because of Shannon,
because of Clark. Offensively, you know, getting a bang from
Dillingham in the next three years. So we have Dillingham
and Shannon, who obviously were rookies this year. They have
(31:48):
three years left on their contract as long as you
exercise it, and if they developed, there's no reason they
won't exercise that, right And Clark has one year on
his deal and wouldn't be hard to retain, right Whereas
I think I want Alexander Walker back, Don't get me wrong,
but I think someone's gonna throw some money at him,
(32:08):
kind of like Kyle Anderson, where you're like, someone's gonna
give him money, dude, and just give him more playing
time now, Randal and NOAs we'll see. You know, they
got a decision to make this whole trade. We're gonna
find out if the trade was really about money or
(32:31):
if they could get more bang for their buck doing
the trade, right, Because theoretically speaking, you wouldn't say Nas
played himself into more money in the playoffs, where I
think you would say that about Randall. But in the
next the next two to three years, if you look
(32:53):
at what Cat's gonna make, and if you could get
those two for a out that money, that'd be a
pretty damn good deal, right, if you could get Randall
in Nas, it's really up to you know. I think
Randall will resign. I do believe noswill. Maybe someone was
(33:16):
willing to give him a bigger contract, But if it's
a bigger contract, it's probably gonna be a pretty bad,
too subpar team, So we'll see, you know. But I
could also see him wanting to start, like, hey, I
want to start someplace, you know. But if his contract,
(33:40):
if someone is willing to give him a lot of money,
it might be a sign in trade, you know. And
if if you look at Randall, you know, he's at
a different stage of his career. He's already in his thirties,
and I think he's got at least a few years
of prime. Maybe it's two, maybe it's three. Maybe it's
a little bit more stuff to say. But if the trade,
(34:05):
because you know a lot of people say it was
the constraints. You know, when you go to try to
make a trade in the future, shit, you can be
over the you know, there's all sorts of like if
you're over the second apron twice in a row, that
hurts you even more. If you're over the apron, you
(34:25):
can't even trade your first round pick. There's a lot
of constraints. And so we're gonna find out because remember
Conley and Finch both said this wasn't about money. But
like I said, if you can fit you know, from
the fifty five to sixty million range, fifty three to
(34:49):
fifty eight or let's say fifty to sixty somewhere in there, right,
if you can fit two players in there, well then
that's fucking good. And you got Devincenzo off of it,
and you got a first round pick. The fact that
our first round picks haven't hurt us. With Rudy, we
just had to this. We were able to get to
(35:10):
this last go round, and it feels like at least
one's gonna pay off with Shannon. If not doing you know,
we'll see. You know, I'm not gonna go. I think
it's too far to do the offseason recap right now.
It's it's just it's too premature or you know, the draft,
(35:32):
or could there be a trade on Draft night or whatever.
You know, we'll see. I don't want to go too
deep into it. I'll say this though, if in fact
they just lose Game five, loose you know tomorrow night,
I'm not gonna do a recap on Game five, right
(35:53):
I'll let some time go, and then as we get
closer to the draft and free agency, then I'll do
a show and really this stuff down because there's a
lot of good questions out there. There's a lot of
questions that need to be answered. You know. Of course,
I'd believe in Finch in the short term, no doubt
(36:18):
right now. Long term, is he the best offensive coach
for ANT? Is he the best offensive coach for ANT
using Rudy or just using Rudy like they did in Utah?
Now some of that can be answered. I don't I
(36:39):
don't think he's necessarily the best coach offensively, Like the
the fit, the flow fit for ANT. I gotta admit
I think Ant is a limited playmaker and he's gonna
be going into year six, and of course you'll get
better and better and better and better. But there are
some things that if you naturally grow up being more
(37:04):
of a point guard or a playmaker, that you just
have when you come in the league. So when you
enter year six, of course you're gonna get better, break
it down defenses and all that. But I think by
through five years, I think, like, I think he's limited
(37:27):
as a playmaker, and I don't think he'll improve massively.
You know, I think we've seen some jumps, but night
in and night out, game in and game out, you know,
I still wonder if he's ever like, is he gonna
So he's twenty three right now, so the next ten years,
let's say, is he gonna have is he consistently gonna
(37:49):
average seven seven and a half, you know, anyway from
like six to eight assists? You know, could he average
seven and a half assist for like or over seven
a six for five straight years? I don't know. I
don't think so. But on this team, you know, point
randall point forward, he could be over five and could
(38:09):
be over five. Conley Dante could be over five in
say Mcconnlelly, do you next year do you lean into
Dante more and bring Conley off the bench. So there's
a lot to talk about. But I do think being
that this is the first year you have a core
(38:30):
and this is the first year on your new team
that you made a gigantic trade for, do you try
to just lean into this team the next few years?
And really the only piece that I think about trading,
whether it's now or in the coming years, would be Ruby.
I would love them, love for them to lean all
(38:51):
the way into this team. And so we will get
to see if this was all about the second apron
or the salary cap and they want to cut. We're
gonna find out. I said that last you know, I
said that when we did the show after the trade, like,
we're gonna find out this offseason. If that trade was
about money, I should say about saving money, because of
(39:15):
course it's about money. It's a seller cap, right, But
like I said, if you can fit those two in
and hop Dante in a first round pick, you know,
obviously the trade worked for both sides, right, But in
the end, it would make more sense to be able
(39:35):
to have Randall en nos In Dante in a first
round pick rather than just Cat. Obviously, right now, you
could say in some ways Cat fits better than Randall
for aunt because he can stretch. You know he can stretch.
But then again, there's times we just know he's about
(40:00):
power forward random So I don't, you know, I started
kind of touching upon this. I don't want to give
my full opinion on it because there's a lot, you know,
that's going to take place. And like I said, I'm
not saying maybe we should move on from Finch or something.
People are saying that left and right. I think that's ridiculous,
you know. But as far as the national media and
(40:26):
some people were kind of pissed at Ant, one of
his quotes was, I made the right play all night,
so I didn't really look at it and struggled. I
didn't get enough shots to say I struggled. I didn't
struggle at all. I thought he struggled some. You don't
have five turnos or if you're not struggling some. So
some people got pretty mad at that. Though. Here's Kendrick
(40:49):
Perkins though about AMP. He said, you gotta check the
boxes when you're the face of the league, Bird, Magic
and j Obi, Shacqu Lebron, Steph they were all family men.
They all were married with kids. Okay, so did married
with kids ever really come into like Bird? Like did
(41:12):
you think man Bird's a great family man. I didn't
really know shit about Bird when I was a kid.
Magic love me some Magic. He was the first professional
basketball player I fell in love with. That was my
guy right still as obviously, but would you would you
(41:33):
classify like he's a family man now but in his
playing days to classify and I love me some Magic,
but to classify Magic as a family man, I mean okay?
And then Kobe, I mean he got got cheating and
(41:56):
narked on Shack who was cheating. You know, we know
locally in Minneapolis that Shaq was cheating with Courtney James girlfriend,
which I'm not trying to make light of because he
did hit her with a telephone book, which is fucked up, right,
I'm not making light of that. But to say Shaq
(42:16):
was this big family man now, Stephan, Lebron, shirt Kobe
or MJ, Yeah yeah, he had a clean cut image.
He sure as hell. MJ wouldn't have a clean cut
image nowadays, though, if you know that information would get
out about him in gambling and all this shit, right,
(42:38):
he wouldn't have a clean cut then. I mean he
punched what three of his point guards in practice, So
I mean, you know, I wish he would just say
what he means, and you cannot, you know, the whole
(43:00):
I'm gonna pay my child support off straight up, and
I don't want anything to do with the kid. Why
don't you just say that? Why don't you just say
that's fucked up? Don't don't beat around the bush with
some dumb shit talking about Magic was a family man,
bro Like, oh was he? Come on? I love Magic?
Kobe was a family man. His daughters loved him. Rip,
(43:22):
but family man. I mean he was on trial during
the season. No, he for cheating though it was a
bullshit trial. Of course he didn't rape her, but he
was cheating though, you know, So I don't know. And
then you have like Mackie going the other way right
where he's like you know, aunt led you know the
(43:45):
Wolves back to back conference, you know, appearances age twenty
two and twenty three, and Curry didn't get there till
twenty six. Johannis didn't get there till twenty you know,
like he yokicch and Lebron. Even Lebron didn't make his
second Eastern Conference final until twenty four, but he went
to the finals. And he said, in fairness, he went
(44:07):
to the finals. But it's about your team too, you know,
Lebron carried that team. And to even have a sentence
he didn't make a second conference final until he was
twenty four. Why even put that if you're you know,
the first title at twenty seven, Jordan at twenty seven, dude,
(44:30):
it's your team. Is how far you go on average?
Like I said, KG guys in the conference final, you know,
one time with us. But he was an MVP of
the league the year before or that year he could
have been. Sorry, the year before, he was literally a
(44:50):
top three player in the fucking league. So when you
when you protect him that way too, that's silly too,
because it's all about who you got around. Yeah, I
mean just ask MJ. Before they won, you know, he
kept getting beat they. I don't think they ever even
beat Boston in this one game. Now, is that because
(45:15):
Jordan sucked? No, it's because his team wasn't as good
and then once his team got good, he had to
figure out to involve them more. So, you know, I
brought up some questions that we will find answers to,
whether it's during free agency, like I said, Draft night, whatever,
(45:36):
but I will do a show leading up to that,
right and you know, over the next little bit we'll
find out, you know, even exit interviews, where's everybody's head at.
You know, sometimes that allows you to to kind of know,
but with Conley, you never know, right. But I'd say,
(46:00):
you know, I'd be happy if they leaned into this
team as much as they could bring back Nods, bring
back Randall. But like I said, we're gonna we're gonna
find out. We're gonna find out if that trade was
about saving money or about flexibility and get more bang
for your buck. Anyway, if they do force a Game six,
(46:25):
I'll probably do a show then, like after, to see
how the series went after that. I hope they Obviously
I'd love them for them to come back, but it'd
be nice for them to win one more game and
get it back to have that. You never know what
(46:46):
happens tonight, you know, Game six. But anyway, I'm gonna
get out of here. It's not all gloom and doom.
It does feel like last night was the best chance
to win in the series, obviously, because he would have
evened it up, put the pressure on Okay see, but
it didn't happen. It is what it is. I'm gonna
(47:08):
get out of here, enjoy the rest of the week.
Let's hope they get a dub on Wednesday. If not,
like I said, I'm not going to do a post
game five show, and I'll just in a few weeks
as the draft, maybe like a month from now, I'll
(47:29):
do a show and hopefully I have Aaron and some others
maybe to kind of have a roundtable talking about what
they should do with their offseason in what they you know, predictions,
what what they what we think is gonna happen, YadA, YadA, YadA. Anyway,
I'm gonna get out of here. Yeah. Piece
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