Speaker 1: Welcome into NBA Culster production of iHeartRadio in the NBA.
Speaker 1: I'm sarahcu Stock, NBA analyst for the Yes Network, and
Speaker 1: today is Monday, Remember twentieth. From our extraordinary core group
Speaker 1: of NBA journalists. We're joined now by NBA dot Com
Speaker 1: senior writer John Schumann, and Shoe's Power rankings are out
Speaker 1: for the week and we are rolling in the season.
Speaker 1: End of November is I have said thanksgivings on the way,
Speaker 1: and we have had some very stuff stats from a
Speaker 1: handful of these teams, in particular on the defensive end.
Speaker 1: The number one team, the Boston Celtics jump up from
Speaker 1: number four, Minnesota Timberwolves remain at number two, Philadelphia seventy
Speaker 1: six ers at number three, the Nuggets at four, Oklahoma
Speaker 1: City Thunder at five, and Shoe, I want to start
Speaker 1: with those Minnesota Timberwolves, number one in the West nine
Speaker 1: to three record. They currently sit third in defensive ranking
Speaker 1: and that's where they have had a lot of their
Speaker 1: dominant and Anthony Edwards has been tremendous as you watch
Speaker 1: what he's doing throughout the course of the season, averaging
Speaker 1: twenty six points, nearly six rebounds, five assiss thirty nine
Speaker 1: from three on almost seven attempts.
Speaker 2: Edwards denied on the baseline. But they're to go right
Speaker 2: back to its mid rat He's got everything. He's got
Speaker 2: the entire fas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Karl Anthony Towns twenty two points nine rebounds. It
Speaker 1: feels like they're they're really finding their fit and finding
Speaker 1: their groove. When you when you look at the Timberwolves
Speaker 1: and you've watched them at this early part of the season,
Speaker 1: what do you like about the way that they have
Speaker 1: been playing?
Speaker 3: Well, Obviously it starts with defense. You know, they had
Speaker 3: the number one defense in the league until they played
Speaker 3: the second game of a back to back, you know,
Speaker 3: last week against Phoenix, and they got clobberd in that game,
Speaker 3: and so their defense sunk a little bit. But you
Speaker 3: sort of take away that second game of a back
Speaker 3: to back, and you know, they probably have the number
Speaker 3: one defense in the league. And obviously Rudy Gobert is,
Speaker 3: you know, just like an automatic top ten defense in
Speaker 3: the regular season, just the way his presence inside, how
Speaker 3: huge he is, his rebounding, his shot blocking. But you know,
Speaker 3: it takes more than one guy, you know, to be
Speaker 3: this good defensively, and I think they've really come together.
Speaker 3: They just they're they're really big, Like you know, size matters,
Speaker 3: and even if Carl Anthony Towns isn't the swiftest defender
Speaker 3: in the league, he's still big. Anthony Edwards is huge
Speaker 3: for a for a shooting guard. Jaden McDaniels is just,
Speaker 3: you know, long, wiry and incredibly active on that end
Speaker 3: of the floor. That's a lot of good defenders, and
Speaker 3: I think their offense is coming along. You know, it
Speaker 3: hasn't been great. It's it ranks fourteenth, but Carl Anthony
Speaker 3: Towns is starting to find his groove a little bit.
Speaker 3: He's in their three games last week, he averaged twenty
Speaker 3: nine points.
Speaker 2: You got to have any Towns heard out front handle
Speaker 2: out dorthy.
Speaker 3: Towns is in a great job tonight at setting up
Speaker 3: Rudy Goldbers. He's actually seen like a small jump in
Speaker 3: usage rate from last season, so he hasn't got a
Speaker 3: sort of gotten lost in the Anthony Edwards, you know,
Speaker 3: come up. You know, Edwards fouled out at the end
Speaker 3: of their game in New Orleans on Saturday, and Town's
Speaker 3: got the ball and put up a nice little sort
Speaker 3: of deft runner off the glass to win the game.
Speaker 1: Now watch by day, gonna drive to the ramp, books
Speaker 1: it up, awkwin do for two booms on the top
Speaker 1: five point two to go.
Speaker 3: So I think that's maybe the most encouraging thing that
Speaker 3: he's starting to find his offense and sort of, you know,
Speaker 3: make the most of his talent on that end of
Speaker 3: the floor.
Speaker 1: When you talk about this group fitting together and just
Speaker 1: kind of you know, I think there's always been so
Speaker 1: much attention on the Gobert Karl Anthony Towns fit. The
Speaker 1: ascendants of Anthony Edwards has been terrific to watch. We
Speaker 1: saw throughout the course of the summer, in the postseason
Speaker 1: last year, and just how he's felt like he's been
Speaker 1: so ahead of schedule. Do you think though, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: they're sitting right now early part of the season tops
Speaker 1: in the Western Conference.
Speaker 2: But do you think this is sustainable play for them?
Speaker 1: Do you think that they can feasibly be a top
Speaker 1: four seed in the Western Conference when all is said
Speaker 1: and done with home court advantage and have a real
Speaker 1: chance at contention for sure?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I mean mostly because some of
Speaker 3: the other you know, contenders in the West haven't been
Speaker 3: great as far as you know. Golden state, the Lakers
Speaker 3: have been up and down. You know, Phoenix is off
Speaker 3: to a slow start and is not going to have
Speaker 3: a healthy star trio for another few weeks at least,
Speaker 3: So I think, yeah, the opportunity is obviously there. Denver
Speaker 3: is you know, obviously going to be the sort of
Speaker 3: favorite in the West. But I think Minnesota, Oklahoma City,
Speaker 3: which we'll talk about in a little bit, can can
Speaker 3: can be right there. You know, Minnesota, it's now or
Speaker 3: never because there's no way they can sort of keep
Speaker 3: this roster together with all the salaries going and the
Speaker 3: fact that they have you know, I think three other
Speaker 3: five best players or five highest paid players or centers
Speaker 3: might be five or six, but like for now, you know,
Speaker 3: one one note is that the minutes with nas Red
Speaker 3: on the floor with one of the other two bigs
Speaker 3: have been really good, and those minutes were really bad
Speaker 3: last year, and so that's encouraging. So like when they
Speaker 3: when they re signed Nasrid this summer, I was like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, they have three centers and and you can't
Speaker 3: really put two of them on the floor together because
Speaker 3: you know, the Gobert Towns minutes weren't great last year.
Speaker 3: And then the read minutes with either of those guys
Speaker 3: were pretty bad. But that's sort of flipped on its
Speaker 3: head this season, which is encouraging.
Speaker 1: All Right, you teat us up for another surprise team
Speaker 1: in the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder currently sitting at
Speaker 1: number two in the West, as we have mentioned, number
Speaker 1: five in your power rankings.
Speaker 2: And they have been They've been a fun watch.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of teams finding success and
Speaker 1: I will find the Thunder on League Pass any chance
Speaker 1: I can get.
Speaker 2: Shake Gilds.
Speaker 1: Alexander put him in an MVP conversation, Jalen Williams, I
Speaker 1: think jumped out and really opened up a lot of
Speaker 1: eyes last season how he's been playing. But the guy
Speaker 1: that we had been waiting on was chet Holmgrid and
Speaker 1: he has looked absolutely terrific. In a overtime win against
Speaker 1: Golden State on Saturday night, he had thirty six points.
Speaker 2: Throughout the course of this way two wins against the Warriors.
Speaker 3: Shot to tiched Holgren.
Speaker 2: What the three the buzzer ties one.
Speaker 1: Seventeen days smacked San Antonio and then Portland yesterday.
Speaker 2: Uh, the Oklahoma City Thunder Shoot.
Speaker 1: Let's let's first start with chet Holmgren because I think
Speaker 1: some of these other players, you know, the fit of
Speaker 1: John Skiddy, Lou Dor's, all of that. They've come together
Speaker 1: in a really nice way under Mark Dagnolt. But but
Speaker 1: what has has Chet Holmgren's shown you this season that
Speaker 1: maybe you didn't anticipate him walking into the league and
Speaker 1: looking like coming back from injury.
Speaker 3: I guess it says polish offensively. I mean, there are
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty eight players who've taken at least
Speaker 3: one hundred shots from the field this season, and check
Speaker 3: Holmgren has the highest two shooting percentage among those one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty eight. He shot sixty two pointers, six
Speaker 3: percent from three point range, and he's ninety one percent
Speaker 3: from the line. I mean, so he's having an overall,
Speaker 3: he's having a fifty to forty ninety season, you know,
Speaker 3: through fifteen percent of the season, with fifteen percent of
Speaker 3: the season over.
Speaker 2: He mentioned his whole bridge, but three eighty.
Speaker 3: Kids, that's pretty amazing for a rookie, you know, whether
Speaker 3: or not he had you know, a year around the
Speaker 3: team or not.
Speaker 2: You know, like.
Speaker 3: That's incredible, and you know, no matter how big he is,
Speaker 3: you know, when Victor Webbin Yama is bigger and not
Speaker 3: shooting nearly as well, especially from the outside. So yeah,
Speaker 3: he's amazing and he obviously makes it impact defensively. You know,
Speaker 3: the thunder have have won seven of the last eight
Speaker 3: games and they have been the league's number one defense
Speaker 3: over that stretch. Now, you know, it's helped that they've
Speaker 3: got to play you know, the Spurs and the Blazers.
Speaker 3: But you know, two wins over the Warriors is is
Speaker 3: pretty good too. And I mean the end of that
Speaker 3: overtime went over the Warriors was just amazing to see,
Speaker 3: like Shake Gils Alexander just basically iso against whatever defender
Speaker 3: was in front of him and go to take him
Speaker 3: to school. You know, like he went one on one
Speaker 3: with Chris Paul, his mentor and friend. He went, you know,
Speaker 3: he tried to get switches on with on the lesser defenders,
Speaker 3: but there was one where you know, Andrew Wiggins stuck
Speaker 3: with him and he's like all right, you know, and
Speaker 3: he toasted him too.
Speaker 2: Shake Gildas Alexander gets into the lane with a.
Speaker 1: Fame and made another one third field goal at ot.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's absolutely phenomenal. The facts. You know, I
Speaker 3: think this team has a real identity where the offense is,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, Shake Guilds is Alexander plus just
Speaker 3: a lot of strong pieces around him. And then defensively
Speaker 3: is where they've been strong, like when they've made runs
Speaker 3: in previous seasons. You know, they obviously haven't made the
Speaker 3: playoffs with this group, but they've had some strong stretches
Speaker 3: and it's usually been about their defense. They also got
Speaker 3: Kendrick Kenrich Williams back this week and he's a really
Speaker 3: key role player for them. So their whole and you know,
Speaker 3: Sky's the limit. You know, it's amazing, you know how
Speaker 3: well they've done, but they've done it against good opponents too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to overlook Shay's knight that night
Speaker 1: when I mentioned in Homegrown having thirty six and ten
Speaker 1: SGA had forty points, seven rebounds, six assists. To talk
Speaker 1: about those clutch plays down the stretch, and you mentioned
Speaker 1: being around a team we don't want the whole t
Speaker 1: shirt back and forth of the Donovan Mitchell Ben Simmons
Speaker 1: work of the year. But when you're talking about chet Holmgren,
Speaker 1: I think so many of us looked at Victor Wembinyama,
Speaker 1: how he's come out of the gates, what he's looked
Speaker 1: like in terms of the Rookie of the year conversation,
Speaker 1: Do you think this could be a nice little race
Speaker 1: here early on? We're seeing it, but between Chet and
Speaker 1: Victor for sure.
Speaker 3: And I throw Asar Thompson's name in there too. He's
Speaker 3: been fantastic for the Pistons, not in regard to everything
Speaker 3: but shooting basically, you know, he's a monster defensively, He's
Speaker 3: a monster on the glass. I had a stat last
Speaker 3: week that he basically had the highest rebounding percentage for
Speaker 3: a player who was six six or shorter in the
Speaker 3: last I forget what it was, it was more than
Speaker 3: ten years. Like the last person who was that short
Speaker 3: and had a higher rebounding percentage was Chuck Hayes and
Speaker 3: that was a long long time ago when he was
Speaker 3: the six to sixth center for the Rockets. So I'll
Speaker 3: throw his name in there too. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: I think right now, if I had a you know,
Speaker 3: if I was voting right now, I'd probably go home
Speaker 3: brun number one, just because of one the efficiency and
Speaker 3: to the team success.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll be fun to continue tracking, but the impressive
Speaker 1: nature of all of these players and how they're doing
Speaker 1: it and translating to wins has been tremendous. Not a
Speaker 1: surprise team, but they jumped out and certainly gave a
Speaker 1: show last season. The Sacramento Kings have Deer and Fox
Speaker 1: back and they're getting back on track.
Speaker 2: We'll talk to them right off to the break. Welcome
Speaker 2: back to the NBA call Sarahustak, John Human.
Speaker 1: We are talking shoes Power rankings for the week and
Speaker 1: getting into the Sacramento Kings, who have jumped up to
Speaker 1: number seven from seventeen last week weeks. They have six
Speaker 1: straight wins, including a win last night at Dallas one
Speaker 1: nine point thirteen against the Mavericks, who've been playing really well.
Speaker 1: Sacramento has won sixth straight. They've had Deer and Fox
Speaker 1: back for four games and in those four games, the
Speaker 1: number one rated offense in the stretch, number eight defense,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, an area that you kind of
Speaker 1: look how they can improve on. That into the floor
Speaker 1: in terms of really making themselves a title contender too.
Speaker 1: When you look at the Kings now with Deer and
Speaker 1: Fox back, a little bit of a rocky start to
Speaker 1: the season, but part of that was missing their point guard.
Speaker 1: What have they shown you with Fox back in the lineup.
Speaker 1: It gives you reason for optimism to continue on the
Speaker 1: trajectory we saw throughout the course of last season with
Speaker 1: this group.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's number one. It's their offense is
Speaker 3: just so much better with a healthy point guard. And
Speaker 3: I think that's one about him, but two also about
Speaker 3: the guys who were on the floor when when he's not.
Speaker 3: You know, you know, Davion Mitchell and Kean Ellis have
Speaker 3: basically been their point guards. And while both of those
Speaker 3: guys are solid defensively, you know, that's a huge, huge
Speaker 3: drop off on the offensive end of the floor. So
Speaker 3: they they've scored one hundred and twenty two points per
Speaker 3: one hundred possessions in the seven games that Fox has
Speaker 3: played in just one hundred and four per one hundred
Speaker 3: and the five he's missed, he's averaged thirty two point
Speaker 3: three Over these four games since he's come back, they're
Speaker 3: now six and one with him in the lineup, and
Speaker 3: this six game winning streak has included four wins over
Speaker 3: teams that also have winning records right now. Okay, see Cleveland,
Speaker 3: the Lakers, and the MAVs, as you mentioned, And also
Speaker 3: I think you know their offense was great last year.
Speaker 3: You know, they had the number one offense in the
Speaker 3: league last year, but their defense was not. And I
Speaker 3: think we're starting to see some some hints of improved defense.
Speaker 3: You know, at this early in the season, you can
Speaker 3: look at teams that have improved defensively and you might
Speaker 3: just see, you know, while their opponents haven't shot well
Speaker 3: from three point range, or they've played some bad teams.
Speaker 3: But I think there's some hints in the number is like,
Speaker 3: you know, their paint defense is better. You know, they're
Speaker 3: not fouling as much. That hint to that. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe there's some legit improvement defensively. Now. You know, they're
Speaker 3: not gonna be I don't think a top ten defense,
Speaker 3: but if they're out of the top ten and could
Speaker 3: be around league average and match that with a top
Speaker 3: you know five offense, then then you've got something real.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's basically what the Nuggets were last year,
Speaker 3: you know, top five offense, league average defense, and then
Speaker 3: they sort of turned up the defense when the games counted.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think I think it's encouraging. You know,
Speaker 3: obviously the offense is is what it is, but I
Speaker 3: think there's also a little bit of encouragement on the
Speaker 3: other end of the floor that can make this team
Speaker 3: a little a more complete, complete team overall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think I was out there for for
Speaker 1: their media day doing some work, sitting down with the
Speaker 1: with a lot of these individ jewels Dr Fox, Bonus,
Speaker 1: you know, even Harrison Barnes, a Keigan Murray. I think
Speaker 1: they have a group that took a lot at the
Speaker 1: last season and has a really good chemistry and obviously
Speaker 1: just understanding what Mike Brown is asking of them. But
Speaker 1: it feels like the attention now has taken there. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of anticipation to start the season, a
Speaker 1: lot of attention on them how they were going to
Speaker 1: follow things up of course that first round seven game
Speaker 1: series against the Warriors and how that played out, but
Speaker 1: the expectations of this season, and I think some of
Speaker 1: that attention has shifted a little bit with how the
Speaker 1: Timberwolves have been played Oklahoma City's We talked about it,
Speaker 1: and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing for them,
Speaker 1: And a lot of that, too, is in part of
Speaker 1: Fox being out and then hitting a little bit of struggles.
Speaker 1: But it feels like now having watched even you know,
Speaker 1: watching some of that Dallas game last night, it feels
Speaker 1: like a lot of the things that you saw that
Speaker 1: found them success last year they're starting to get back
Speaker 1: to and doing so just with an added level of experience,
Speaker 1: and I think Keigan Murray's is a key part of
Speaker 1: that and how he continues to grow and develop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my only doubts with them this year, and there's
Speaker 3: sort of their ability to remain a top three or
Speaker 3: four team in the West was just about health because
Speaker 3: they were so healthy last year where their top five
Speaker 3: guys barely missed any games, and that just doesn't seem
Speaker 3: like possible to do over a second straight year. So
Speaker 3: that was my worry. And of course you know, obviously Fox,
Speaker 3: you know, missed five games and so you know, we've
Speaker 3: already seen it and the effect. And obviously with him,
Speaker 3: I think, like as I mentioned, like he is super
Speaker 3: super valuable just because they don't have anybody else who
Speaker 3: can replicate to any degree, you know, what he does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how they want to play some of that.
Speaker 1: Much of that comes down to his style of play
Speaker 1: in commanding the offense too. As always, we appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: We will continue to track your power rankings. For the
Speaker 1: week and look forward to reading all your stuff and
Speaker 1: thank you for those rankings.
Speaker 2: We need you to get some.
Speaker 3: Sleep, no, all right, Sarah.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
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