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Download the DraftKings Sportsbook App and use code HOOPS. That's code HOOPS H O O P S for new customers to get $300 in bonus bets. If your bet wins when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER in New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text hopeny to 467-369 in Connecticut help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bet must win to receive reward. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG Co Audio. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight here at the Volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody and happy conference finals as we kick it off with the Western Conference tonight, what was a pretty entertaining game for the most part, outside of a couple of things. We're going to get into it from a bunch of different angles. Yes, we'll have a little bit of ref talk off of the top and then at the tail end of the show, we're going to take 10, 15 minutes of mailbag questions from you guys. So if there's some specific angles from tonight's game that you want to dive a little deeper into, let's get those questions into the chat and we'll hit them at the end. It's also nice because right around the time I finish my monologue is when I can get into some of the advanced metrics that populate, you know, 15, 20 minutes after the game so we can get a little bit deeper during that mailbag segment. And then when we finish up here tonight on YouTube, we're heading over to Playback TV slash Hoops tonight. We'll be taking callers, we'll watch film. We'll just get into the weeds and have some fun. It's a more informal vibe. I've been really in. I've been really enjoying that setting over there. So we'll be heading over there when we finish on YouTube tonight. You guys know the drill. Before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at_jason lt so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed. Wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and TikTok, so make sure you guys follow us there. And then last but not least, like I mentioned, keep getting those questions into the chat so we can hit them at the tail end of the show. First of all, as we shift to this game, I'm just very excited this series is going to be a blast as long as Shay doesn't get a free throw every damn time he flails or falls or trips over air or whatever it is he was doing for the most, for the most part in this particular game. I tweeted out after Shay's first foul, the first time that he grifted his way in the lane. There was a second one where Julius Randle clearly grabbed him and was like a very clear foul. There was similar one late in the game where Jaden McDaniels clearly grabbed Shay when he was initiating that contact. Those sorts of things. I want that called every time. That's not defense. You're just grabbing. But if you're sliding your feet and you're going down the lane line and Shea's gonna just lightly bump into you and fall backwards and flail and throw it up, I don't think that's a basketball play that should be rewarded with free throws. And one of the things I tweeted at the beginning of the game was, if Shea wants to lean on that, that's a great sign for Minnesota because that's not something that's gonna work out in the large sample. But it did work out tonight as he continued to get the calls. Conspicuously, it was the same ref every time. It was Mark Lindsay who kept giving Shea every single damn touch foul throughout the game. And I think the NBA just needs to pluck Mark Lindsay and just get him out of the playoffs so that we don't have to watch him anymore. Cause, like, to me, it's not about fairness. The whistle was relatively even tonight. Maybe Shea gets three or four additional additional calls. He. It's not the reason Minnesota lost this game. We're going to talk about that more here in a minute. OKC did a lot of good. To me, it's just about the television product. Basketball calls, like bad calls, are a part of basketball games. I'm never going to get overly worked up on that as far as it pertains to one team or anything along those lines. Again, I don't think that's why Minnesota lost tonight. I'm just super excited because this is going to be a showcase for the young generation in the NBA. And what we don't need is to watch Shay Gildress Alexander just flailing and doing all that bullshit and getting rewarded with free throws for it. So let's just. Let's NBA, let's get Mark Lindsay out of the series. It's not the type of series for him. He wants to ref like it's February. No one's interested in watching that. So let's, let's get him out and then hopefully we can enjoy this series with some quality basketball between these two teams. The reason why I'm excited about this series is just about every player in this series is a good defender who can do a little bit of dribbling, shooting and passing. A textbook modern basketball showcase. Showcase. Ant and Shay, it's a super fun matchup. You could tell they don't like each other. And with a lot of little gamesmanship early in the game. One time he's standing over the top of Shay. One time he's throwing the ball at him. It's clear they don't like each other. That's great. That's great for the television. Julius Randolph versus J Dub. Two very different types of players. Julius has this insane first half. Offensively, J Dub just brilliant defensively all night, showcasing why he was getting just a little bit of defensive player of the year buzz. This year, again, just an excellent showcase for the young generation of the NBA. I want it to be about basketball though, so no more of the grifty bullshit. Like we don't need to see every driving bump get rewarded with free throws. So I hope they get that out of there. It was the tale of two halves though. In the first half, I thought it was very clear that Ant and Julius were pretty comfortable against Oklahoma City's primary perimeter defenders. That led to Julius getting nice separation on moves into the lane. I thought he was really decisive against Alex Caruso, not messing around and trying to beat him with fancy dribble combinations. He was just like, I'm bigger and stronger than Alex, so if I just make a simple move and I protect the basketball, I'm going to be able to get some sort of dribble penetration against this guy. And I thought he had great success there. None of OKC's guards can really stop Ant from getting to his spot. It's really just a question of his ability to rise up and knock down shots and to make the kick out passes. I thought both guys, and this is a credit to okc, I thought both guys really wore down over the course of the game under OKC's defense and foul trouble disrupted their rhythm. But there was a nice trend early in the game that I think should leave all Wolves fans feeling like they have a chance to win this series. Which is just OKC's athletes. They're a very good defense, but they don't do too much to make Ant and Julius uncomfortable. I also thought in the first half Oklahoma City looked a little caught off guard just by Minnesota's size and athleticism. Just a very different type of athletic profile than Denver was or even Memphis was. And I think that it just took them a little bit of time to adjust, particularly on the offensive end of the floor. All you got to do is look at the the box score. They go for 44 points in the first half and they go for 70 in the second half, right? In the second half, Oklahoma City settles in. They get some nice ISO scoring early in the third quarter from both Shay and J Dub. Chet starts getting aggressive in scoring in the middle of the floor. They start to, on the other end of the floor, start to win some of those battles on defense against Julius and against Ant. They start to force him into some misses. They get into some foul trouble, and then from there, Shea and Chet just put the game away. There were a lot of openings for Chet. I can't wait to dive further into this in the film, but there were a lot of openings for Chet around the rim, on rolls and on cuts and on crashes, on offensive rebound situations, a bunch of that kind of stuff. And I thought you can really see the difference in the two defensive game plans in that regard. And it manifested in a bunch of key spots in the box score. So, for instance, Minnesota takes 51 threes. Oklahoma City takes 21 threes, right? Minnesota gets 20 points in the paint. Oklahoma City gets 54 points in the paint. The way that's manifesting is Minnesota is a lot of like, stay home, trust the guy on the ball to do his job. Oklahoma City very much is forward aggressive. We're gambling, we're packing the paint, we're giving up three point shots in hopes of turning you over and having the aggregate kind of impact of that be a positive, right? And that's the thing. They gave up a ton of threes tonight. Minnesota did not burn them. And we'll have to talk about that here in a minute. Specifically, their bench really struggled to shoot the ball, but Oklahoma City generated 31 points off of 19 Minnesota turnovers. And that ended up being a kind of a balance that pays off for them. But you can see the difference in that defensive scheme, right? Oklahoma City, forward aggressive, packing the paint, overloading the strong side, giving up a lot of threes. It felt like if Minnesota got any sort of dribble penetration into the middle of the floor, there was some sort of kick out opportunity that would lead to a wide open three in the corner for a good shooter that Was capable of knocking the shot down for Oklahoma City. Once they started to get into the middle of the paint, especially when Rudy Gobert checked out of the game. We're going to dive into that a little bit here in a minute. But they started to get into the paint and find openings because it's a lot of one on one and two on two down there. Like on that play where Jaden McDaniels gets called for the foul, grabbing on Shay when he kind of got tied up going down the lane line. There's nobody there at the rim. He was able to go right back there and get an easy right hand scooping layup. A couple possessions later, a lot of one on one, a lot of two on two. That created opportunities for Chet to be an impactful vertical spacer as a cutter and crasher and finisher around the basket. And then Shay getting into the lane, consistently drawing those fouls. And in that second half, Ant and Julius were never able to gain any sort of rhythm outside of a brief little Anthony Edwards burst in the middle third quarter and next thing you know, we're looking at a blowout because that Oklahoma City train got going and Minnesota was never, never able to reassert control of the situation. I want to just kind of go through some notes that I have from both teams and then when we're done with that again, we're going to go to the mailbag. And you guys, any direction of the series you want to dive further into, we'll start to dig into some of the numbers too, as they update. So on the Oklahoma City front, I thought J Dub was great in this game. Like he was fine on offense. Nothing that you're going to write home about. Not super efficient, but he didn't turn the basketball over. And to get 19 points and 5 assists with 0 turnovers on 18 shots. Even though it's not the most efficient thing in the world. That's a fine offensive game in the Western Conference finals. I thought he was incredible on defense in this game. Five steals, attacking Ant and Julius. Every time they turned their back in post ups and getting the ball knocked away that way. Random turnovers with full court pressure. You got one against Julius Randall that way. Just flying around on defense. He defended on on an island against Nas Reed multiple times and got stops. Just bumped him really hard on the first one and forced a turnover. Bumped him on a spin on the second one. They brought a nice little baseline double. I think it was from Caruso on that play too that they got another stop. J Dub was Just an incredible defensive force in this particular game. Okay, so you got a nice little shift from Kenrich Williams in this game. He defended really well. He ran some pick and pop where Nas Reed was kind of defending him as like a traditional screen defender, which was leaving him open on the pop. He hit a three there. He was plus 13 in eight minutes. A nice little stretch from Kenridge Williams. Overall, I thought it was one of Chet's best games in this playoff run. We talked about the work that he did as like kind of a vertical spacer in the middle of the floor. I also thought he did an amazing job on the defensive glass in the second half. You watch the tape in that second half, he's getting a body on somebody every time he's boxing out, he's high, pointing the basketball. Oklahoma City was able to regain control cause Minnesota did a lot of damage on the offensive glass in the first half. Minnesota was not able to do that damage in the second half. And I thought a big part of that was Chad Holmgren and then Alex Caruso. All the work he's doing defensively, he struggled a little bit with Julius Randall tonight. Him continuing to be like the most reliable catch and shoot spot up guy for Oklahoma City is a revelation and it's turning him into one of the most profoundly impactful playoff role players in the league right now. Because like, I mean, I remember when I rooted for Alex Crusoe, that wasn't really a big part of his game. It was like you could knock him down, shot 40% his final season with the Lakers, but struggled to shoot him in the postseason. It was never really what you were in the Alex Crusoe business for, but him knocking down all of these catch and shoot threes is making him immensely valuable as a 3 and D player in this playoff field. On the Minnesota front again, I still think Ant and Julius can generate quality shots. I thought in the second half it was a lot of fatigue and foul trouble related stuff where, you know, there was an extended stretch there where Ant and Julius were both just off the floor. I mean it was playing pretty well in that mid third quarter. And he picked up a weak ass foul on another one of those stupid ass Shay Gilders Alexander bump and run shots. And it just took him out of the game. And I just thought when he came in he struggled to regain rhythm. At that point it was a very different game too. By the time Ant came back in, the game was not out of reach, but it was in a fundamentally different type of position as a lake, you know, Fourth quarter double digit lead than it was in that third quarter stretch. But over the course of this series, those two guys have to do essentially what they did. They have to basically do what I always talk about with veteran players, which is like find the stuff that's working and replicate it. Take the mistakes. Gotta trim that fat, stay away from it, right? Julius Randle got a little sloppy with the basketball in the second half. Anthony Edwards got a little sloppy with the basketball in the second half. You give up 31 points to Oklahoma City off of turnovers, you're shooting yourself in the foot and you're going to make it really, really difficult to win at that point. But overall, just looking at the physical dynamic ants too big and strong and athletic for all of Oklahoma City's guards. And Julius Randle is a big powerful forward that can find matchups that he can attack. So that's a very strong foundation for them offensively in this series. Their bench guys have to hit shots though, like it's, it's rough. Nas Reed 1 for 11. Dante DiVincenzo 3 for 14. Nikhil Alexander Walker 3 for 11. That's 7 for 36 from the field. From the, the depth that we talked about coming into this series as one of the strengths of this Minnesota roster and a lot of them guys like this, there were some uncomfortable things. I thought Dante looked a little rushed on some of his on ball stuff. Right. Like I thought Nas Reed's post ups were ugly, but there was a lot of butt naked three point shots in there that those dudes were missing and they went 5 for 28 from 3. And so with A and Julius and the types of quality threes that they were generating, those guys just have to pay them off the turnovers to transition again. This is going to be the key to the series. Like Oklahoma City will have a hard time scoring against Minnesota in the half court, especially when they have a big on the floor. But if you're going to gift wrap them 31 points running out the other way when your defense isn't set, you're putting yourself in a really tough position to win. And then lastly, the last thing I want to focus on before we get into our mailbag is Rudy Gobert. I can't come into the series. If you guys remember in my series preview I talked about how I didn't really see this as as much of a center type of series. I specifically said I wouldn't be surprised if we looked back at the end of the series and that both Rudy Gobert and Isaiah Hartenstein averaged fewer than 20 minutes per game. Isaiah Hartenstein, 20 minutes tonight. Rudy Gobert, 21 minutes. The Rudy Gobert piece, by the way, I thought she held up fine. So this is not necessarily an OKC take. I thought OKC's small ball groups did fine. If it turns into something where Minnesota starts really overwhelming them with physicality, maybe it's something they have to look into, expanding Isaiah's role. But specifically with Gobert, I think it's a little bit more complicated than just what meets the eye there. Rudy's a frustrating player. There were a lot of sequences tonight where he was gift wrapped, pretty high quality opportunities on trails and rolls around the basket where his inability to finish anything in traffic was a problem. And that's an important problem. Something that we need to factor in when we have discussions about Rudy. He also had a pretty rough first defensive ship as he picked up a couple of fouls. But I thought from that point forward I thought he was fine defensively and I actually thought his presence on the back line was part of the struggles that Shea Gildrich Alexander was dealing with. Shay really got comfortable going downhill towards the rim in the second half of this game. And so when I really start to parse out the impact of Rudy in this particular matchup against an Oklahoma City team that isn't the highest level, backline processing sort of team in this matchup, I would like to see Rudy Gobert at least I would like to see Chris Finch explore using him a little bit more simply because there is a little bit of a dynamic when he's on the floor, when Shay's there, where Shay wants to operate a little bit more in the short to mid range, whereas when he's not out there, he wants to go right to the bucket. And so I think it's worth just exploring a little bit more, just expanding Rudy Gobert's role more. There was an extended stretch in this game where Chris Finch went with no center with Nas Reed off and with Rudy off. And look, I get it, you know, Rudy has his offensive limitations. Nas Reed was having the game from hell for, for him. But. And I'm not necessarily, you know, pushing back against that in this particular game because it was going off the rails anyway. But as something to adjust potentially in game two, I wouldn't be so quick to pull the, the pull the plug on Rudy Gobert because I do think he has a little bit of a mental impact on Shay on J Dub, forcing them into some of those tougher contested mid range shots.