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Speaker 1: Night here at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody, hope love
Speaker 1: You guys are having a great week. Well the Minnesota Timberwolves,
Speaker 1: they're back against the wall, get a huge win on
Speaker 1: the road in Dallas to extend the series. Now we're
Speaker 1: headed to Game five on Thursday night back in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to break Game four down from the perspective
Speaker 1: of both teams. You guys are the joke before we
Speaker 1: get started. Subscribe to the Hoops and I YouTube channel
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Speaker 1: show announcement. So forget about our podcast feed where if
Speaker 1: you get your podcast on our hoops tonight and keep
Speaker 1: dropping mail bag questions in those YouTube comments. We keep
Speaker 1: hitting them throughout the rest of the postseason. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk some basketball. So obviously there's an important kind
Speaker 1: of like, you know, sub subtext, a little bit of
Speaker 1: footnote on tonight's game. Right, Like Derek Lively, who is
Speaker 1: a very important piece piece of this Dallas Mavericks team,
Speaker 1: missed the game. You could argue he's probably their fourth
Speaker 1: best player I think behind PJ. Washington and Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: and Luka Doncic, and I want to be clear that
Speaker 1: certainly plays a role in what happened tonight, But I
Speaker 1: want to give Minnesota credit because I thought even if
Speaker 1: Lively had played tonight, it might not have made that
Speaker 1: much of a difference, because I thought Minnesota outplayed Dallas
Speaker 1: in this particular game. And even though Lively is super
Speaker 1: important and he's going to return to this series and
Speaker 1: Minnesota will have to beat the MAVs with Lively on
Speaker 1: the floor in all likelihood to advance to the NBA Finals,
Speaker 1: Minnesota just played a really good basketball game today, and
Speaker 1: I think just overly focusing on the Lively pieces missing
Speaker 1: the boat, and it's a disservice to a really good
Speaker 1: game that they played. I thought they just outplayed Dallas.
Speaker 1: They came out, they punched him in the mouth early,
Speaker 1: they responded to every Mavericks run, and they flipped a
Speaker 1: couple of key factors that they had been losing earlier
Speaker 1: in the series. First of all, they finally won the
Speaker 1: half court battle for the first time in the series.
Speaker 1: They outscored Dallas ninety eight to eighty six in half
Speaker 1: court points per one hundred plays. A big part of
Speaker 1: that was the over the top shot making. Anthony Edwards
Speaker 1: made seven jump shots, Kyrie Irving and Luca combined to
Speaker 1: make six jump shots between the two of them. Kat
Speaker 1: made four of his own. So you got out shot
Speaker 1: in terms of your over the top shooting from your stars.
Speaker 1: Eleven made field goals to six and again, like that's
Speaker 1: not unlively, that's just those guys missing shots. It's a
Speaker 1: credit to the defense. It's a credit to ant in
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Towns making shots over the top or excuse me,
Speaker 1: overall jump shooting for both teams one point one to
Speaker 1: nine points per jump shot for Minnesota, one point zero
Speaker 1: two for the Dallas Mavericks. In the clutch situation that
Speaker 1: we got that we've had in every single game in
Speaker 1: this series, for the first time in the series, ant
Speaker 1: actually out executed Luca in the clutch. Aunt hit two
Speaker 1: jumpers and he had three separate assists to Karl Anthony
Speaker 1: Towns and Luca hit that three. He had that one
Speaker 1: to three in garbage time, and he drew that foul
Speaker 1: on the pump fake against Carl Anthony Towns. But other
Speaker 1: than that, an assist to PJ Washington. He wasn't generating
Speaker 1: baskets the same way that Anthony Edwards was. That was
Speaker 1: the first time in the series. There are four games
Speaker 1: that I thought Aunt actually outplayed Luca in this game,
Speaker 1: so credit to him. Again, Like they won the rebounding battle,
Speaker 1: Minnesota dominated points in the paint, and so like, I
Speaker 1: want to just give Minnesota credit. Obviously, there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of factors. You've got a classic close out type of game, right.
Speaker 1: Kyrie straight up said it in his shoot around before
Speaker 1: the game. He's like, tonight's their super Bowl for us,
Speaker 1: it's just another basketball game, which, by the way, that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily the attitude you want to project before the game,
Speaker 1: but that said, like that's the truth. Like Minnesota is desperate,
Speaker 1: Dallas has four chances to get this one game right. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the Derek Lively injury, Carl Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards,
Speaker 1: they are both coming off of a really rough first
Speaker 1: three games of the series. So those two guys, they
Speaker 1: got their pride on the line in a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways, and they just bounced back tonight. And so
Speaker 1: again I want to give Minnesota credit. I thought they
Speaker 1: just outplayed Dallas, and I thought they deserved to win.
Speaker 1: That there was a key adjustment that we saw in
Speaker 1: this game that I thought was fascinating. Minnesota decides to
Speaker 1: put Jaden McDaniels on Kyrie Irving and move Anthony Edwards
Speaker 1: over onto Luka Doncic. I like this for a couple
Speaker 1: of different reasons. Right Like, in the big picture, you
Speaker 1: don't love the idea of Ant on Luca because Ant's
Speaker 1: defensive effort has been somewhat inconsistent in this postseason run,
Speaker 1: even on the ball right and early in this series,
Speaker 1: a lot of Kyrie getting off was Ant just not
Speaker 1: doing a very good job. But the desperation of the
Speaker 1: situation actually brought Ant's best defensive game of the series
Speaker 1: out on Luca. One of the nice things with Ant
Speaker 1: he has a little bit more strength and a little
Speaker 1: bit more quickness in short bursts of movement to be
Speaker 1: able to recover against against Luca when he's working in
Speaker 1: ball screens and then the major pieces. Jaden McDaniels is
Speaker 1: an entirely different level of perimeter defender than Anthony Edwards
Speaker 1: in terms of total commitment for forty eight minutes and
Speaker 1: a lot of length on Kyrie Irving in a weird way.
Speaker 1: I look at it like this, even moving forward to
Speaker 1: game five. I like this matchup because do I expect
Speaker 1: Aunt to have the same level of impact on Luca
Speaker 1: in Game five that he did in Game four? No,
Speaker 1: I think Luca will have a big bounce back game
Speaker 1: in game five. That said, Jaden McDaniels on Kyrie Irving
Speaker 1: is really a tough matchup. That's a matchup that Kyrie
Speaker 1: might struggle with continuing forward in the series, we will see.
Speaker 1: I thought that, like, look at it from the perspective of, like,
Speaker 1: if you can't cut off like the head of the snake,
Speaker 1: if you can somehow cut off the second most important
Speaker 1: piece of the team, right, like if you can somehow
Speaker 1: minimize Kyrie realizing that Jaden can't guard Luca anyway, So
Speaker 1: even a bad defensive effort from Ant isn't going to
Speaker 1: have that much of a different impact on Luca than
Speaker 1: Jaden McDaniel's trying his ass off, right, because Luca just
Speaker 1: throws Jayden around like a rag doll. Right. So I
Speaker 1: kind of liked that idea from the standpoint of, like,
Speaker 1: put your defensive specialist on a guy he can actually
Speaker 1: make strugg a little bit, and then put in a
Speaker 1: situation where if he struggles, it's the same struggles that
Speaker 1: you were having with your primary perimeter defender. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: liked that adjustment. I think they should continue that forward
Speaker 1: into Game five. The big bounce back game from Karl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns took more of an inside out approach, was
Speaker 1: really attacking the basket early, just kind of putting his
Speaker 1: head down getting to the rim. Hit that little bank
Speaker 1: shot driving towards his left hand side against PJ Washington
Speaker 1: early in the game. That kind of set the tone
Speaker 1: a little bit. He didn't even attempt a three point
Speaker 1: shot until the second half and then got red hot.
Speaker 1: Really impressively too, considering he was in foul trouble most
Speaker 1: of the night. Classic Karl Anthony Towns doing stupid shit
Speaker 1: to get into foul trouble, but he persisted through that
Speaker 1: and hit a bunch of big shots. Anthony Edwards another
Speaker 1: big bounce back game from him again. I thought he
Speaker 1: was really good on defense against Luka Dancic for the
Speaker 1: most part, and then the big thing from him in
Speaker 1: this game was hitting all of those pull up jump
Speaker 1: shots that he was hitting in pick and roll again,
Speaker 1: Like you guys, everyone's talking about, Oh, Derek Lively, he's
Speaker 1: out of the game, there's no rim protection. That's not true.
Speaker 1: You just scaled up Daniel Gafford's minutes. He played thirty
Speaker 1: one minutes. Maxi Kliba played what thirteen minutes in this
Speaker 1: game and he was plus two. So, like you got
Speaker 1: Kaleba back and you scaled up Gafford's minutes, there were
Speaker 1: still quite a bit of elite defensive personnel on the
Speaker 1: back line. Do you guys remember that play where Aunt
Speaker 1: beat Derek Jones Junior off the dribble and elevated right
Speaker 1: into Gafford's chest and Gafford walled him up and he
Speaker 1: just kind of tried to wiggle around and he couldn't finish. Like,
Speaker 1: there's still elite rim protection there. Daniel Gafford blocked Karl
Speaker 1: Anthony Towns twice in that second half stretch, right, So,
Speaker 1: like they still have rim protection in there. And the
Speaker 1: reality is is even regardless of whether Lively comes back
Speaker 1: in game five, or if it comes back in game six,
Speaker 1: or he doesn't come back at all, there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of rim protection in there. And so what's happening
Speaker 1: is as Lucas getting past the first layer of the defense,
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity for him to have some success in
Speaker 1: that mid range and specifically because of the go bear
Speaker 1: problem and the fact that he can't catch or finish
Speaker 1: anything around the basket unless it's a wide open and dunk.
Speaker 1: Because of that, you need to be able to make
Speaker 1: those little mid range jump shots and pretty consistently in
Speaker 1: this game, and was able to get to those spots
Speaker 1: and knock him down again. He made seven jump shots
Speaker 1: between pull up threes and pull up twos in this game.
Speaker 1: I thought that that was, you know, kind of like
Speaker 1: the missing piece for him with this particular roster. Now,
Speaker 1: ideally in the big picture, we'll get to that in
Speaker 1: the offseason. I don't love the idea of Anthony Edwards
Speaker 1: needing to make pull up jump shots in order to
Speaker 1: have success because he's got a stonehand center that can't
Speaker 1: catch and finish anything around the basket. But with this
Speaker 1: particular roster, that's just what he's gonna have to do.
Speaker 1: And so again, Carl Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards, we'll see.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna be enough. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about it in a minute, I still feel very confident
Speaker 1: that Dallas is gonna win this series. But like again,
Speaker 1: this was a big bounce back game and persistently throughout
Speaker 1: this playoff. R and I talked about this in our
Speaker 1: mail bag this morning. I've been pretty consistently impressed with
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards and how he's managed to kind of confront
Speaker 1: his weaknesses over the course of this playoff run and
Speaker 1: have some success in spite of those weaknesses. Typically we
Speaker 1: see players have to have multiple playoff runs where they struggle,
Speaker 1: or multiple off seasons to work on specific things. And
Speaker 1: ant keeps like running into that brick wall, but then
Speaker 1: like just continuing try to force his way through and
Speaker 1: having some success. And again I don't think it'll be
Speaker 1: enough to turn the series around, but I was really
Speaker 1: impressed by the bounce back performance from Ant and from
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Towns Tonight. One other guy I wanted to
Speaker 1: shout out for the Wolves, Kyle Anderson that more defense
Speaker 1: on Luca. He's another guy that kind of had He's
Speaker 1: like a bigger, stronger version of Jaden McDaniels in the
Speaker 1: sense that like he actually can absorb some of those
Speaker 1: blows from Luca and actually has the length to bother
Speaker 1: him on his pull up jump shot a little bit. Now.
Speaker 1: He has some issues on the offensive end of the floor,
Speaker 1: as we have talked about at nauseum over the course
Speaker 1: of the season, but he was actually really active off
Speaker 1: the ball in tonight's game, which allowed him to remain
Speaker 1: at positive on the offensive end. Really good screen he
Speaker 1: freed up Karl Anthony Towns a few times for threes.
Speaker 1: Was smart screening. He had three offensive rebounds. Was obviously
Speaker 1: super impactful on the defensive end of the Florida at
Speaker 1: three steals in this game. A bunch of really good
Speaker 1: contests on Luka Doncic. Really nice game from Kyle Anderson.
Speaker 1: Big bounce back win for the Minnesota Timberwolves. So looking
Speaker 1: forward to Game five, you know, I was talking with
Speaker 1: our production staff because we obviously were I thought Dallas
Speaker 1: was gonna get it done tonight. So shout out to
Speaker 1: Minnesota for getting it done or for extending the series.
Speaker 1: But like we were talking, we were just kind of joking.
Speaker 1: We're like, oh, we we were expecting to have Thursday
Speaker 1: night off and have this like magical eight days off
Speaker 1: before the NBA Finals, which obviously for myself and for
Speaker 1: the team here at hoops tonight. It would have been
Speaker 1: very nice because we've been going like absolutely insane for
Speaker 1: the last two months. Right. But like you know, Paul,
Speaker 1: our lead producer, he goes, He's like, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: think Minnesota might kill him in Game five, And you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of feel the opposite about that, Like I
Speaker 1: think Game five is going to be another crazy close
Speaker 1: game that kind of ends up around one hundred to
Speaker 1: one hundred with a few minutes left, and I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna come down to shot making. Because here's the
Speaker 1: thing I keep talking about. You know, remember that the
Speaker 1: bit that I did before the earlier in the series
Speaker 1: where I was like, momentum is only as good as
Speaker 1: whatever your matchup advantages are in the next series. That's
Speaker 1: kind of the way I look at the idea of
Speaker 1: Dallas's rim protection. It's like the cliche like momentum is
Speaker 1: only as good as the next game starting pitcher in baseball,
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't matter how good you feel, how stoked
Speaker 1: you are, whether or not you're on the home at
Speaker 1: home or on the road. If that dude's you know,
Speaker 1: a two seamer and slider is flummixing all your hitters
Speaker 1: and nobody can get on base, like it just doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if nobody can actually hit the pitches that are
Speaker 1: being thrown. And that's kind of the way I look
Speaker 1: at Game five, like the problems still there. It's still
Speaker 1: there that every single time Anthony Edwards comes off a
Speaker 1: ball screen, the pain is completely packed every single time
Speaker 1: just drives by his man in Iso because Go Bear
Speaker 1: can't catch or finish anything. It's just Gafford or Lively
Speaker 1: just standing right under the basket waiting for him. There.
Speaker 1: That problem's not going away. And again I talked about
Speaker 1: it earlier. I do think Jaden McDaniels could have some
Speaker 1: continued success against Kyrie. But I do think that Luca
Speaker 1: will have a big bounce back offensive game in Game
Speaker 1: five on the road in Minnesota. So I expect Game
Speaker 1: five to be very close. And the bottom line is
Speaker 1: in order for Minnesota to win this series, they have
Speaker 1: to win on Thursday in Minnesota, then go back on
Speaker 1: the road to Dallas on Saturday and they have to
Speaker 1: win again, and then they have to come home and
Speaker 1: close them out in Game seven at home on Monday,
Speaker 1: when they've already lost two games at home to Dallas
Speaker 1: and every single one of these games has more or
Speaker 1: less been the same kind of pathway. I actually thought
Speaker 1: Minnesota outplayed Dallas tonight, but in the other games they
Speaker 1: still managed through attacking the offensive glass, through just making
Speaker 1: a lot of jump shots, Minnesota mana to kind of
Speaker 1: hang close. But the same problem persists in these late
Speaker 1: game environments. Is gonna have to make pull up jump shots.
Speaker 1: Karl Anthony Towns is gonna have to make contested threes,
Speaker 1: whereas on the other end of the floor you have
Speaker 1: professional over the top shot makers and Kyrie Irving and
Speaker 1: Luka Doncic and Luca just seems to be able to
Speaker 1: manipulate the defense to get wide open threes for guys
Speaker 1: like PJ. Washington in the corner and easy lob dunks
Speaker 1: for guys like Daniel Gafford and Derek Lively. It just
Speaker 1: seems in the aggregate easier for Dallas to generate quality
Speaker 1: shots in a half court than Minnesota. And so again
Speaker 1: it's out there. If they go home in Game five
Speaker 1: and it's a close game and ant makes two or
Speaker 1: three more huge clutch pull up jump shots, then they
Speaker 1: and Luca happens to miss a couple, then yeah, they
Speaker 1: have a chance to win that game. But do I
Speaker 1: see that happening in Game five and then again in
Speaker 1: Game six on the road, and then by the way
Speaker 1: game six, you're gonna feel a bit of desperation because,
Speaker 1: like Kyrie said, just another basketball game in game four.
Speaker 1: If Dallas loses Game five in Minnesota, you bet your
Speaker 1: ass Dallas is gonna come out ready to play incredibly
Speaker 1: desperate basketball in Game six at home, and so, like
Speaker 1: shout out to Minnesota, big bounce back game. But I
Speaker 1: still feel very confident that Dallas is gonna get this done.
Speaker 1: I think they have at least a coin flip chance
Speaker 1: to get it done on Thursday. And I would just
Speaker 1: be very very surprised if Minnesota was able to go
Speaker 1: on the road on Saturday night and win in Dallas.
Speaker 1: And so sticking with Dallas is my prediction. But I
Speaker 1: just I just want to tip the cap to Minnesota.
Speaker 1: It was a big, big back against the wall, gutsy
Speaker 1: performance from them to extend the series. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: that is all I have for tonight. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: back tomorrow morning. We're gonna do a film session. We'll
Speaker 1: dig a little bit further into the basically my goal
Speaker 1: for tomorrow morning is to rewatch the game and try
Speaker 1: to identify anything that is sustainable from Minnesota going on
Speaker 1: the road, Because if you're gonna win this series, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna win three three additional games in a row,
Speaker 1: you better have flipped the script on some key advantages
Speaker 1: for your team that you can replicate on a night in,
Speaker 1: night out basis. And so I'm gonna be digging in
Speaker 1: the film to try to find something like that. So
Speaker 1: keep an eye on the feeds. Tomorrow we'll have a
Speaker 1: film session and then we'll get back into it on
Speaker 1: Thursday night for Game five. I will see you guys.
Speaker 1: Then the volume