Speaker 1: It's all about timing. Several stars, including Zion Williamson, Trey
Speaker 1: Young and Fred Van Vliet, show out just before coaches
Speaker 1: have to make their all star reserves. Picks the Timberwolves
Speaker 1: fire head coach Ryan Saunders and replace him immediately with
Speaker 1: an assistant from another organization, and the Nets keep winning
Speaker 1: and they might add the rockets to Marcus Cousins. Actually
Speaker 1: he's not available. He's available. He's not available. He's not available.
Speaker 1: He's a vila. I'm tas malus, and this is what
Speaker 1: you need to know in the NBA for Monday, February
Speaker 1: twenty second. And we start with Zion Williamson because there's
Speaker 1: nothing like him in the NBA. He is one of
Speaker 1: a kind. So when I saw there was a nationally
Speaker 1: televised game ABC the afternoon tilt Pelicans Celtics, I was pumped.
Speaker 1: And then the game landed with a thud. Boston Celtics
Speaker 1: were up twenty four points. At one point. Zion couldn't
Speaker 1: get anything going. He was just driving into body after
Speaker 1: body after body. He had guards digging, little Kemba Walker
Speaker 1: getting in there, stripping Zion Williamson. So in the second half,
Speaker 1: Stan Van Gundi Pelicans head coach. He changed it up.
Speaker 1: He said, Zion, let's spread it out, baby. You do
Speaker 1: your thing and iso up top. Just use your body
Speaker 1: to get through your defender and the handles that you got.
Speaker 1: That's enough. Get to the rim and everything will work out.
Speaker 1: And it did. Zion had a great fourth quarter thirteen
Speaker 1: fourth quarter points, twenty eight overall. As the game went
Speaker 1: into overtime in the Pelicans won, Brandon Ingram played perfectly
Speaker 1: off Zion's drives. Brandon Ingram had thirty three points in
Speaker 1: this one. Poor Brandon Ingram. He's having a better season
Speaker 1: than he did last year when he was named an
Speaker 1: All Star, and this year it's very very unlikely he'll
Speaker 1: get an All Star nod, while Zion Williamson could. And
Speaker 1: he's playing great at the perfect time as the coaches
Speaker 1: are getting there. All Star our ballots filled out right now.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to make their picks before Tuesday's announcement.
Speaker 1: All Star Reserves announced Tuesday night on T and T.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to that. We've got a head coaching change
Speaker 1: in the NBA. The Timberwolves have fired head coach Ryan Saunders.
Speaker 1: But first they had a game to play. Ryan Saunders
Speaker 1: was coaching against the guy he replaced, Tom Thibodeau of
Speaker 1: the New York Knicks, having a great season there. This
Speaker 1: game went down to the wire. Karl Anthony Towns had
Speaker 1: a shot in the post to try and take the
Speaker 1: lead with thirty seconds left over his former teammate Taj Gibson,
Speaker 1: but it rimmed out on a rim in Madison Square
Speaker 1: Garden where the ball just kept rimming out on Sunday,
Speaker 1: and that was Ryan Sanders' final quarter as head coach
Speaker 1: of the Minnesota Timberwolves. He took over for his late father,
Speaker 1: Flip Saunders, in twenty nineteen. The thirty four year old
Speaker 1: had a little string of injuries to deal with and
Speaker 1: played in many, many close games, and the Timberwolves already
Speaker 1: have saunders replacement. Chris Finch, who was a Raptors assistant
Speaker 1: coach this season, has been given a multi year deal
Speaker 1: by the Minnesota Timberwolves to coach them full time. It's
Speaker 1: a rare move to pluck an assistant from another team
Speaker 1: mid season to take over a job just doesn't happen
Speaker 1: very often. Usually, the team that fires ahead coach just
Speaker 1: moves their assistant over for a while. At the very
Speaker 1: least when the full job search can be done until
Speaker 1: the full job search can be done in the offseason.
Speaker 1: But they had been looking at Chris Finch for a
Speaker 1: long time. In fact, he interviewed in twenty nineteen when
Speaker 1: Ryan Saunders was eventually given the job and Finch, like
Speaker 1: his good friend, Raptors head coach. Nick Nurse coached abroad
Speaker 1: for a long time UK, Germany and Belgium, then moved
Speaker 1: to the g League and then was an assistant in
Speaker 1: the NBA for a decade, and he's an offensive specialist.
Speaker 1: He's worked with James Harden and Zion and now he'll
Speaker 1: have the chance to work with Karl, Anthony Towns and
Speaker 1: Anthony Edwards. One other instance I found of an assistant
Speaker 1: coach moving to the head coaching spot on another team
Speaker 1: midseason was Lionel Hollins moving from the Bucks bench to
Speaker 1: the Grizzlies head coaching spot in nine Thanks to Mike
Speaker 1: Vorkanov and the Athletic Slack channel for giving me that info.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Nick Nurse, he said he's going to be
Speaker 1: calling all the other head coaches, saying Fred van Vliet
Speaker 1: should be an All Star and against the Philadelphia seventy
Speaker 1: six ers, fred van Vliet sure look like an All Star,
Speaker 1: making a first quarter run, bringing the Raptors back with
Speaker 1: a great thirteen point quarter a wild shot off the glass.
Speaker 1: He didn't call it last, but either way, Fred van
Speaker 1: Vliet is making his name known this season. If you
Speaker 1: remember a few weeks ago, he had a monstrous fifty
Speaker 1: four point night. It's an outside chance that he'll make
Speaker 1: the All Star team. But if the coaches value winning,
Speaker 1: the Raptors have a winning record. More on that in
Speaker 1: a second. That's wild. Joel Embiid, coming off a career
Speaker 1: fifty point night himself in his previous game, went up
Speaker 1: against Nick Nurse. Nurse and his wild coaching style. The
Speaker 1: started small, o j Annobi, Pascal Siakam what but in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter they went big against Joel Embiid and
Speaker 1: it works seeing all these different defenses. Embiid shot six
Speaker 1: for twenty. Aaron Bain's looking like a player, Chris Bouche
Speaker 1: looking like a player. What's going on with these Raps?
Speaker 1: They're sixteen and fifteen, first time above five hundred this season.
Speaker 1: They started very slow in their new home of Tampa.
Speaker 1: But why am I telling you? Let's let one of
Speaker 1: the best analysts in the biz. Raptors Jack Armstrong break
Speaker 1: it down for you.
Speaker 2: Raptors started today, for all you people that jumped off
Speaker 2: the wagon. Shave by you. You gotta be falling in
Speaker 2: love with this seae. They fight, they rhyme, They're coming.
Speaker 1: The Brooklyn Nets are staying hot. They have won six
Speaker 1: in a row and they swept a five game West
Speaker 1: Coast swing, much of it without Kevin Durant, but Harden
Speaker 1: and Kyrie were enough to get a big lead on
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday. Although the Clippers fought
Speaker 1: back in the fourth quarter, they were down fourteen. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was owner Steve Balmer's flailing legs courtside that got
Speaker 1: them tied with twenty nine seconds left, but DeAndre Jordan,
Speaker 1: against his old team, a great tipping with his left
Speaker 1: hand to give the Nets a two point lead. Then
Speaker 1: Kawhi had a chance to tie it. He drove James
Speaker 1: Harden well, he flopped and the offensive whistle went against
Speaker 1: Kawhi Leonard. People were going crazy for the flup. It
Speaker 1: was definitely a flop, although I will say mere seconds earlier,
Speaker 1: when Kawhi tied it from the free throw line, he
Speaker 1: got a very questionable call against DeAndre Jordan who barely
Speaker 1: bumped him, so it all balances out. Unfortunately, Paul George
Speaker 1: wasn't on the floor there late minutes. Restriction yis he
Speaker 1: set the last couple minutes when he was the best
Speaker 1: clipper on the floor in this one, thirty four points
Speaker 1: for him the Nets. They are now six to one
Speaker 1: against the Lakers, Clippers, Jazz, Bucks, and Sixers this season. Man,
Speaker 1: they're impressive, but they could use another big And that
Speaker 1: brings me to the DeMarcus Cousins story out of Houston.
Speaker 1: It's a strange story, Cousins having a solid year on
Speaker 1: a non guaranteed deal. February twenty seventh is when non
Speaker 1: guaranteed deals either have to be guaranteed for the rest
Speaker 1: of the season or the player has to be released.
Speaker 1: On Friday, it was guaranteed early by the Houston Rockets,
Speaker 1: and on Saturday there are reports that Houston was going
Speaker 1: to release him. Okay, everyone said, you know what they're doing,
Speaker 1: DeMarcus Cousins. Right. Teams and agents around the league see
Speaker 1: moves like that where you pay a player for his
Speaker 1: time and people respect it. So I start reading stories
Speaker 1: about DeMarcus Cousins and why he struggled a little bit
Speaker 1: in Houston defensively, how he's not part of the future
Speaker 1: on the ethletic that that totally makes sense. But then
Speaker 1: on Sunday, when everybody's thinking, oh, is he going to
Speaker 1: the Lakers, he's going to the Nets. Well, Rockets head
Speaker 1: coach Steven Silas was asked, is Marcus Cousins with the team?
Speaker 1: Is he leaving the team? No, He's here and he's
Speaker 1: going to be here for the foreseeable future. So it
Speaker 1: sure looks like the Rockets will release him at some
Speaker 1: point if they can't get an asset back into trade,
Speaker 1: if they can't get a second round pick back for
Speaker 1: DeMarcus Cousins from whether it's the Nets or the Lakers.
Speaker 1: But I think he will be joining another team, and I,
Speaker 1: for one think it should be the Lakers. I think
Speaker 1: he'll get exposed on the Nets because they're not a
Speaker 1: great defensive team and they will want him to be
Speaker 1: something really good defensively, something which he isn't at this point,
Speaker 1: He'll get exposed. They like to switch a lot. He'll
Speaker 1: just be out on an island way too much. While
Speaker 1: with the Lakers, they're already a good defensive team. They
Speaker 1: won't ask him to do too much, and he was
Speaker 1: there last year, so I think he can take a
Speaker 1: bit of a lesser role and be okay with that,
Speaker 1: and they can get him the ring that he should
Speaker 1: have got before they released him last season. LA is
Speaker 1: the better option for me. Let's take a look at
Speaker 1: how a few potential All Star reserves are performing just
Speaker 1: before the coaches have to make their decision. Okay sees
Speaker 1: Shay Gilgess Alexander peaking at the exact right time, thirty
Speaker 1: one points on only fifteen shots against the Cavs on Sunday.
Speaker 1: Although it's tough West to make an All Star team,
Speaker 1: I think Shay will be on the outside looking in
Speaker 1: this season. Trey Young in the East is not a lock,
Speaker 1: even though he made it last year, but he's peaking
Speaker 1: at the right time. His last few games have been great.
Speaker 1: He had thirty five points and fifteen assists against Denver
Speaker 1: on Sunday. I do think he will be selected, and
Speaker 1: Orlando's Nikola Vucevic. What more can he do? He's not
Speaker 1: getting hot at the right time. He's just been hot
Speaker 1: all season. He had a thirty seven point game against
Speaker 1: the Pistons on Sunday. I'm not sure if the one
Speaker 1: time All Star will make it when the reserves are
Speaker 1: picked on Tuesday, but I will be watching. Thanks for
Speaker 1: watching today. Make sure you watch the full No Dunks
Speaker 1: episode here on Monday. I'll be back on Tuesday to
Speaker 1: give you the news as fast as I possibly can.
Speaker 1: I'll see then special experience became experiment