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Ryan Marcillo (0:00)
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On that one we've got Anthony Slater with more and then he'll also go back and touch on some of the regular season Thunder matchups that he saw, specifically the last game that they played against the Pacers. Without getting ahead of ourselves too much, maybe talk a little offseason market. And we've got life advice live from Bally Neal this episode is brought to you by the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card with US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card, you earn an unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. That's right, every purchase. 2% cash back at restaurants, 2% cash back at the gym. Groceries. Yep, you'll earn 2% cash back on those two. New tires, new outfits, New York City getaway. All earn 2% cash back. Noticing a trend. So whether you're splurging on concert tickets, fueling up for your commute, or shopping for that perfect birthday gift for the bestie, you'll be earning unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. Visit usbank.com smartly card to learn more. The creditor and issue of this card is U.S. bank National association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. Whoa, whoa. Oklahoma City to the NBA Finals in a dominant, dominant Game 5 close out of the Minnesota Timberwolves. So let's take a look at a couple of the numbers and we'll talk about the game and some of the stuff with the summer. So at the end of the first quarter, it's nine points for Minnesota that's not very good. Fewest points in any postseason quarter in Minnesota playoff history. They missed 17 shots in that quarter, went 3 of 20. I think they were 3 of 21 even too, it was 65, 32 at the half. That's not good. Minnesota had 14 turnovers in the first half. That's the most in half of any game all season. The timberwolves, with their 14 turnovers, they had 12 made shots. So again, 14 turnovers in the first half. They made 12 shots. They got down 39 points in this game. Minnesota's largest lead was three. When it was three, nothing. So let's look at a couple plays here. Jaden McDaniels, not crisp to start this one. He was 06. And you look at the start of a game. One of the things I look for, again, when the teams already play this many games against each other, you're like, okay, what does the other team want to give up tonight? What are they willing to give up? And the stuff they were giving up in game four, where they still were able to pull it out when it felt like every Minnesota guy that they were fine leaving, made every one of those shots. That's the only way Minnesota stays in these games. And they needed it again. And they did not get that. McDaniels was 0 of 64 plus minutes into the game. Oh, six. Like, he had six shots up because they were the right looks for the most part. I think he had one drive, maybe little questionable, but those were the right shots for the most part. And Oklahoma City was thrilled he was taking them and even happier that he missed that many. I mean, if you're not even sweating yet and you're, oh, a six from the floor. There were turnovers all over the place, as we mentioned. Late rotations, some of the SGA angles to try to defend him for the second defender. Terrible. Randall had one where it was like, what? How. How could you be this out of it? How can you not be like a little bit more locked in? Because he did have one where he was like, okay, I'm sick of this stuff where he just attacked the ball handler for the Thunder and then kind of like misstep or mistimed his steps. And he still got the layup, but because it wasn't a dunk, I think he was just either tired or sort of was just like counting it wrong, like how much he was going to need to get to the rim. But there were just all these other plays with Brando where. And plenty of the guys had these where you're looking at it and you're going, how are you not more like in tune with anticipation, knowing what's coming your way. What else we had. Ant, who came out really aggressive, was searching. And seriously, like, some of the drives were so incredible because he just was of this mindset where he's like, I need to attack, I need to get to the rim. But it's very hard to do that because it's so exhausting. And it's even more exhausting against his Thunder defense. And you could tell that some of that, like, max effort stuff that he was trying to do in the first quarter where he was just like, I don't care how many bodies are there, I'm going to try to work my way through it or around it. And then he started settling for threes, and it was a terrible three point shooting. So series for Ant. He shot 28% from three in this one because there was a lot of threes in this game where it was like, I'm kind of open. It's like, yeah, you're also kind of like at 20ft away from the hoop at 23. 9. I thought this play kind of just said it all. Minnesota goes back to the zone as they were searching for any kind of defensive answers against the Thunder. SGA's at the top. Wallace is on his right side, so he's not like entirely, you know, he's getting ready. It looks like maybe a corner three setting up for it, but he's not like totally settled in what he's going to do and where he's going to set up offensively. Hartenstein's on his side, so that's really like, if SGA goes right, it's going to be three players on the right side against Minnesota's zone. And so what they do, and I thought it was really impressive that Wallace points it out. It's a really simple thing. I mean, this is not new, a new concept. It's like, if SGA drives, then the corner defender will probably come to help off of Wallace. But if Hartenstein's man is here defensively, he can probably get into the play defensively and contest whatever it is. And so Wallace, the least experienced playoff guy out there for the Thunder, and that's the part that I like, is that he's waving Harnstein to be like, no, go to the other side, bring. Try to bring some attention on the baseline away from me. SGA sees it, he drives. Divincenzo comes up, helps off of Wallace because you need two to SGA on The other side of it. Because now, you know, Rudy shifted a bit away from that side of the drive. It's just a really, like, this is not some awesome, super complicated play. But that Wallace saw, it was like, no, you're on the wrong side. Like, this is what you need to do. Granted, second defender comes up, Wallace is wide open, knocks down the three, makes it 26, 29. So I don't know what point differential means. Well, I do know what it means, but I think you understand the point that I'm trying to make here in the podcast. I don't know. Like, we can look at point differential right now. You know who's number one in point inferential in the NBA playoffs? It's not okc, it's Cleveland. That's how bad that Miami series was. That Miami series in the first rounds. I don't know off the top of my head if it's the worst series I've ever seen. There's probably been worse. That was awful. Not a good series. So if we stay with the point differential theme here, OKC in nine home games is plus 24.7. Their only loss was the Aaron Gordon three in game one against Denver, where they blew the lead late. This team is killing everybody at home. And the crazy thing about this Thunder team is one of the best shooting teams in the NBA this season. They're not even shooting it that well. From three in the playoffs. They got better against Minnesota, 31% against Memphis, 32% from three against Denver, and they were over 37% against Minnesota. But on the entire playoff like season games that we have here, on the whole, they're 33.6% from three, which is 13 out of the 16 teams that have played in the playoffs. This team doesn't even need to make it from three to kick your ass. And that might actually be the best way to admire this Thunder group in 2025. In this version of the NBA that we have, where so many series like make or miss league, like shooting variants, oh, well, they're not going to do that again, right? Whether they missed a million or they made a million, I don't know. The Celtics did it again. But in this version of modern basketball where so much of the story like you can point to all these things, did they help? Did they run this screen? What were the sub patterns? All that stuff that I prob excite few of you about and bore others to death about during the regular season, this team isn't even. Like, they don't even need it. They don't need to rely on the thing that basically every other team needs to rely on. And that's fucking scary. Minnesota last year was more disappointing because Dallas was more gettable. I thought they could win that series, and there's definitely a few moments and some of the late game stuff against Dallas where it's like, I know something. This goes this way, this goes in, this one goes out. No turnover here. Maybe Minnesota's playing for an NBA title last year, and if that had happened and then they lose to Boston, and then now they're out in the Western Conference finals, it's like, oh, is this franchise going in the wrong way? Which, again, I'm assuming a lot of different stuff here. But against okc, once the games actually started, and again, I thought Minnesota could be more competitive. I thought they'd lose the series because how impressed I've been with the Thunder all season long, for good reason. But they were not. They were less competitive than I thought that they would be. And yet they lost to a much better team. So if you're going side by side, 24, 25 Minnesota Timberwolves here, you know, where is this team going? Because by the standards, they're usually far too basic. It's like, oh, well, they made it back to the Western Conference finals, so everything is good. I think on the whole, this entire ownership group, the front office, coaching staff, I know it hurts today, but I think the Timberwolves should feel good about what they did this year, considering the changes and that it did take a little bit longer. But you could certainly make the case, too. It's like, hey, the Lakers were not that good. Massive public overrating. And Golden State, even if they'd had Steph, you know, who knows? But they don't have step. So that was a walk, and it was pretty simple. So there's also an ant conversation, because when you're propped up, promoted, not sure if that's really the right term, you're like, oh, the league wants this guy. Yeah, sure, the league wants a lot of guys to be stars. Is he. Are we hit over the head with ant coverage all the time, or is he so interesting and so dynamic and just he's visually so appealing. Like, that's the kind of way I think every kid would want to play basketball, to play like Ant. And I know it's Stefan making threes and all that kind of stuff, but, like, ant stuff is still cooler than everybody else. It's really about who he is and what is possible for him at this age and that he's A generally accepted top 10 player in the NBA. So we know that when you lose and you have some disappointing outcomes here and it looks like you're just a level below SGA and you're just basically an IT guy in today's NBA, when you lose like this, people are going to dump on you. First take is not going to do. Is Jalen Green actually overrated segment? Maybe they did, I don't know. But you understand the point. Like Jalen Green losing the first round. Jalen Green is not presented to us the same way somebody like Ann is. Because Ant is a lot better and he's the number one option every single night that he's out there. So, yeah, I think there's some real disappointing moments in there. But I'm not going to sit here today and dump all over the guy and feel like I have to reassess what I think is possible for him because that part of the coverage I can't stand. Like really good player, a lot of promotion, a lot of people are behind him. That guy gets eliminated in the playoffs like almost every other star in this league. It's like, man, I thought this guy was good. Guess what? Breaking news. I still think Ant is really, really good despite again, some of my disappointments with him in this series. Minnesota's off season. What do you do with Randall after the first two rounds? I talked about like, hey, Randall, off the ball when all the attention's on Ant, the fact that he can dribble and create. And this was the idea of what Randall was supposed to be, a second on ball guy you could trust to find a way to get his own because Minnesota didn't really have that. And then you have this Randall series. You're like, hey, when you set up 35ft away to back down, dribble, it's probably not going to be as successful against the Thunder as you were doing it. What, like inside the three point line against the Golden State Warriors? He was benched in game two and game four. He's got a player option for 31 million. Can you pay him 30 mil a year? Can you do like four for 120 for him? Do you want to do that? Is 30 million actually in this market a bargain for somebody who's still a very productive player despite another playoff disappointment? Does he opt in because nobody has any money? You know, there's not that many teams cap space. I don't imagine the Brooklyn Nets are like, all right, first order of business, let's get Julius Randle in here. Probably not the case Maybe he opts in, maybe they come up with some other number where he's got the guaranteed money and it's not about him because, you know, look, if they were, if he played really, really well, we look at it and saying, oh, he's opting out and there's all this money waiting for him. There's the rest of the league go, hey, he's a nice player, really talented big guy. But there's a lot of stuff there they don't really like. There was a play last night in the second half. Sorry to do this, but I have to. I told myself I wasn't going to. Shot goes up. Randall doesn't necessarily give up the offensive rebound. The ball bounced at like a bad angle, but he was like really frustrated and he just goes over to the Thunder player and hacks the shit out of him because. And it was like, well, you gave up the offensive rebound and now you're just going to foul the guy. And granted, look, the game had been over for a long time. There's just, there's just stuff. And the fact that he was benched, right, that he was benched by Finch, that Finch was like, I actually like our team a little bit better. And then you think, okay, do you bring that guy back at a huge number? But then again we can keep doing it over and over again. What's the market for him and how much does the Randle decision impact the Nas Reed decision? Because I would think Nas Reed with a player option of 15 million, I would think he's easily a non taxpayer, mid level guy at 14 plus million a year. And if it's a non tax, I think it goes to four years. So does Nas go? That's good money there. And Minnesota's like, hey, we're bringing Randall opted in, we extended him so we can't do that. And then Nikhil Alexander Walker, who's a really nice rotational player, great game four, really game bad game five. But he's an unrestricted free agent, so there's no way you're bringing back all three of these guys. And then I think there's some bigger decisions about Rudy. Can you have somebody be an absolute zero on offense unless he's playing the Lakers? Can you have him be a zero on offense and play 30 minutes a night against the elite playoff teams? Because we know what he can do and what he does for your defense and the moments that he will have. And I don't think he was like somebody who's getting cooked defensively in those, those switches that we've seen before in the playoffs. I need to go back and look at those numbers. But again, visually, it wasn't like, oh, Rudy's getting cooked by like a super dynamic on ball guy and they're, they're looking to switch into this all the time. I don't feel like I saw a ton of that in this series. The problem is in such an offensive orientated league, it's really hard to survive three rounds when somebody is never a concern when they have the ball and even more importantly, when they don't have the ball. Another question. I love Mike Conley. I loved having him on the pod. He's had a great career. What was your favorite Mike Conley? Playoff moment. I'll wait. So those minutes, like, can you really run him out there? If you think you're in this neighborhood of like one of the three or four best teams in the west, can you have him taken up 20 minutes in a playoff game against the really good teams? And we're not talking about, you know, some of the first round matchups, especially if you have a higher seed. So look, Minnesota lost the best team in basketball that is established. And if people were on the fence about the Thunder, I think they're no longer on. At least today. It's also late, maybe so I would hope by now you believe in this Thunder basketball team. But you know, when you think about the decisions of what Minnesota has to debate internally, I mean, today's probably not the best day to be like, these guys are going to be definitive about how they feel about the roster. Although as I asked myself that, I was kind of writing this out, it's like, hey, look, common sense tells you you're not going to get all emotional about this today and having that impact. How you want to look at your off season or did you see enough against a really good team that wasn't the Lakers with just no center options. It wasn't the warriors without Steph Curry. Did you see enough that you're like, actually, the concerns we had about some of the guys on this team were emphasized. Those doubts were emphasized against Oklahoma City Vandals. Turning your bets into bigger bets with a parlay profit boost. That's right, build the same game. Parlay or parlay, and you can boost your winnings by 30% with a profit boost. You pick the team's player stats, all of it. FanDuel just adds a little fuel to the fire. Okay, we're going to make it simple. Game four winner. The total was 221 pacers, one minus two. So we've got that one for you last episode and I think that was what game three was, the only game that was under the 2 21. So this one's a 223. So I like the over again in this because you've got the Pacers, you've got extra possessions and I would much rather bet this as an over game than I would an under. Now the fear is if it gets one sided, you know, like last night with Minnesota and Oklahoma City, it's kind of tough to get that over if the game is out of hand. But I expect the Knicks because, you know, as alarming as the gap felt like after Minnesota and Oklahoma City, now wherever, if the Pacers were closest one out tonight, I don't know that I'd be like, man, the Knicks really have a lot of catching up to do. You know, series can be close even at five games. But you know that gear that we talked about with Slater, that's just a gear. I don't think that the Knicks can match with the Pacers when it's really flowing for Indiana and it feels like there's just a better attacking plan against Cat and Brunson as opposed to the go to stuff that the Knicks want to attack all the time. And who knows, the Knicks maybe have the home crowd emotion, all that kind of stuff. But I would rather take the four points here with the Pacers and go with the over. I would hate betting an under in this series just because you very early on you might go like this. This isn't happening. So it is pacers plus four over 223 plus 2:45 so that is the play. Whether you're betting three pointers, home runs, goals or birdies. FanDuel's got markets across every sport in every game. And the best part, when you win, you'll get paid instantly. So go check it out. FanDuels where your parlay gets paid even bigger. Head to FanDuel.com Ryan R Y E N to get started. FanDue, America's number one sportsbook, must be 21 and older in present select states or 18 plus and present DC. Opt in required bonus issued as Nova Tribal Profit Boost tokens. Restrictions apply including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms of sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem. Call 100 GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com this episode is brought to you by UberEats. Summer is almost here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with UberEats what do we mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. A cabana, that's a no. But a banana, that's a yes. A nice tan? Sorry, no. But a box fan? Happily, yes. A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines, yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Good to have him back on the show. Anthony Slater of the Athletic covers the NBA. I know that he's done a lot of warrior stuff with us in the past because he spent time with them, but he was also with the Thunder previous to his warriors run and he just basically, you know, doing national stuff as well. So he's been covering. The Thunder has a piece on their dominant run through the Western Conference finals. So going into game five last night, like, you could talk me into a million different ways. I still didn't think it would be as embarrassing as it was last night for Minnesota team that I think at times has shown toughness. And as I covered in the open, this was ugly. And it was ugly immediately. So was there anything that surprised you about last night?
