The Thunder take the 2-0 lead on the Timberwolves by defeating them 118-103. Es Baraheni is joined by Jon Krawczynski of the Athletic to discuss the struggles of the Wolves and what they can to do turn it around. Then Es is joined by Andrew Schlecht to discuss the Thunder’s dominant win, Shai’s MVP and much more from OKC.Host: Es BaraheniWith: Jon Krawczynski and Andrew SchlechtExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson Moody Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What happened in Game 2 between the Thunder and Timberwolves?
Good morning and welcome to the Athletic NBA Daily. Thunder strikes the Timberwolves. We've got John Krasinski of the Athletics to talk about it. OKC going up to nothing. Let's do it. Good morning, John. OKC picks up a 15 point win. Good morning to you, sir. Nice to see you. Yeah. Two wins away from the finals for OKC down 0-2 for Minnesota. And, you know, I thought they played a better game.
I thought the Timberwolves played overall a more sharp game than they did in game one, but it wasn't enough, and they couldn't withstand the second-half surge from OKC. Particularly, I think it was a strugglesome game from Julius Randle, who just couldn't get anything going offensively.
How hard is it for this team to be effective offensively for four quarters when it comes to Randle not being that guy on a night-to-night basis?
Chapter 2: What are the Timberwolves' struggles in this series?
Yeah, I mean, it's it's really difficult because, you know, Julius has been so good for them all playoffs, really consistent. And I think he's averaging like 24 points before tonight, before the game. And and then he has six points left. Five rebounds, two for 11 from the field. He was shooting over 52% from the field coming into game two and just couldn't buy a bucket.
This is a team in the Thunder, a 68-win team in the regular season, the heavy favorite in this series. This is a game and a series where you need your stars. Anthony Edwards played well, was more aggressive in this one. He wasn't game one, but
When you don't have Julius Randle to kind of help with that physicality with just the bucket getting, it just really becomes very hard to keep up with the Thunder offensively. And that's what we kind of saw in that game. They just could not find enough buckets offensively. to keep up in the track meet with OKC when, when, when Randall's struggling.
Yeah. I thought Ant had a really good start to this game. Um, getting downhill, being aggressive. I mean, in game one, he only took one shot in the paint. He had four shots in the fourth, fourth quarter, uh, in the first quarter in the paint. So like the aggression was there for him to get downhill, uh, and try to assert himself, but the jumper wasn't falling on the other side.
One of nine from three, um, For him, it's balancing how much they're utilizing him off ball, trying to get him going as a guy who can attack closeouts and be a guy who can make plays without the ball in his hands and knocking down those catch and shoot looks. But also like being the guy on ball for them. What do they need from him moving forward in this series?
Yeah, I mean, it was a really good adjustment from him to attack the rim even more. I mean, Oklahoma City packs the paint, and they do everything they can to take that away. But I just think that Ant was hell-bent on getting there in Game 2, and he really just put the pedal to the metal, got downhill, and started to create things. And even...
On the empty possessions, when that happened, it was always Ant driving and kicking to the corner for a wide-open corner three. Most of the time, they were missing them. And so the simplest thing is the hardest for the Timberwolves right now, and that's shooting the ball. And they were in the regular season. They were fourth in the league in three-point shooting. They shot it well.
They shot above 37% as a team, and Ant was 39% from three on super high volume. Yeah. You go one for nine from three. They went 11 for 39 overall from three-point range. They just have not been able to hit in these first two games. I would credit OKC's defense a lot for that. The scrambling closeouts, the frenetic style that they're playing is speeding the Wolves' shooters up some.
But ultimately, they are getting open looks, and they're missing a lot of those looks. And if they start to fall, if those shots start to fall, then this series can turn quickly. But if they don't, then it's going to be over very quickly.
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Chapter 3: How can the Timberwolves improve their offensive performance?
They gave up 31 points off of 19 turnovers in game one. Um, So really what I do think is like if you're looking at realistic pathways for them to turn things around here, I think the biggest thing is for them to knock down shots because we've seen them do that in the regular season at a very high clip. We've seen them do it and some games in the playoffs as well at a very high clip.
So that is attainable. I don't know against this defense with a team that is careless by nature if it's realistic to ask them to really cut down their turnovers or
great deal I thought one of the things that Nikhil Alexander Walker talked about that was really an interesting and in telling was he said they have to do more than get by on their talent right and I do think in the first two rounds against a very flawed Lakers team against a very shorthanded Warriors team this this these Wolves could
win just on talent they didn't have to really play great basketball to win games against their opponents that they were facing the the thunder are a completely different animal like you have to play really good basketball to beat them and the wolves just haven't been anywhere close to that for most of these first two games the fourth quarter was a little something that they showed a little bit of a heartbeat but by and large they've been just pretty sloppy
I will credit Chris Finch here because he is pushing the right buttons, or at least he's trying to push multiple buttons here in the sense that they've gone small. They've tried to go away from Rudy Gobert. They've tried to go with the Randall and Nas Reed lineups for a little bit. They lean into the whole aspect of like five out offense a lot throughout this series.
And he's been trying to push different buttons here. I'm wondering also another aspect to that is the zone. They went to zone today. I didn't think it was that effective. I thought OKC did a pretty good job of handling it. What are the other buttons that Chris Finch and the coaching staff have to push moving forward in the series?
Yeah, you know, yeah, you do look at it, you know, in game two in the fourth quarter, he didn't play Julius Randall barely at all. And Randall's been such a great player for them. Rudy Gobert sat down as well. And so one thing we saw in the regular season, one interesting kind of subplot here is that, you know, they split the regular season two to two.
There was a three-game stretch where they played a very compact three games in February where Julius Randle, Rudy Gobert, and Dante DiVincenzo were all out. And you'd think, like, going into this series, like, oh, well, they got Randle and Gobert back. Like, you know, this is great for them. But I wonder just if in this specific matchup,
If it's not better to go even smaller, even sleeker with your with your lineups. Right. Nas Reed at the five. Jaden McDaniels at the four. And, you know, some combination of DiVincenzo and Nikhil Alexander Walker and Mike Conley in the on the wings in the backcourt, because that was what got them their two wins against Oklahoma City was getting up and down.
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Chapter 4: What adjustments did Chris Finch make for the Timberwolves?
You know, you could tell that like the most important thing to Shay right now is winning the basketball game. Yeah, because I think it's really hard to celebrate things like that. If you lose and you're going to Minnesota, you know, one one that really changes the tenor of the whole week.
But because it's two heading to Minnesota, I think that everybody's feeling really good about what's going on here in OKC.
He had an MVP performance too. Like he showed off exactly why he was the most valuable player this season. 38 points, 12 of 21 from the field. Yes, folks, he got to the free throw line, but it was because he was aggressive. We won't get into that conversation again. He was surgical from the mid-range area, just absolutely carved up the Minnesota Timberwolves.
I was listening to the postgame and the Timberwolves were basically being asked like, hey, how do you stop them in the mid-range? Because they love to get to that area. And they're like, man, it's just hard to stop SGA when he gets to his spots. He is so good. And I thought another aspect of this is the fact that J-Dub and Chet
This was the third postseason game for the Thunder this season where all three of them had 20-plus points. Jalen Williams ended up with 26. Chet ended up with 22. What did you see from the other guys, the trio here for OKC?
It was a huge game from J-Dub. He had 11 points in the fourth quarter and had some, he had a really big steal. I think that the Timberwolves had cut it to 10. Yeah. And then he stole the ball.
He kind of like somehow miraculously stole that ball too. He like picked the pocket and wrapped it around and it was incredible.
Yeah. I I don't know how he did that. And then the ball gets up the court, gets in Chet's hands. He misses. Dub grabs the offensive rebound, puts it back in. That was a huge moment. He did miss the free throw. But it was a huge moment in the game because it felt like things were slipping a bit. for OKC and they just continue to find little ways to stabilize.
I think it was actually a good thing for them because sometimes I feel like you can kind of ride high through a game like this and roll through it and feel like, oh, there's no resistance from this team. And like the fact is, we just haven't really seen the best punch from the Timberwolves yet. No, not yet. We saw a little bit of that.
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Chapter 5: How did Shea Gildress Alexander's MVP award impact the Thunder?
a lot of the Thunder success really stems from the fact that he can do a lot of little things for them, that he can turn guys away from the rim, that he can space the floor. You know, he had a lot of good passes tonight. I think that there's a lot of really good things that kind of stem from Chet, and we're just kind of scratching the surface with him.
And I think that, like you said, the best is yet to come for him. And, you know, it's really all about staying healthy, and it's about, you know,
putting weight on and like that's something that he's probably he's heard since he yeah he knows a kid yeah he knows he needs to do that but that's also something that just comes naturally you know um yeah i know it very well you know as you get older listen We know it just happens. It'll happen. You know, when he's 27 or 28, you know, he's, he's going to be a lot stronger.
I mean, he's never going to be big, but like Kevin Durant's another guy that kind of has the same body type as him. Kevin never got bulky. I don't think anyone expects him to get bulky, but Kevin got a lot stronger. You know what?
This is funny. I was watching. Okay. See the thunder shared a social media video from when SGA first came to Oklahoma and Yeah. And he was talking about how he needed to develop his body. And it kind of hit me how much he's actually developed his body since he was a second year player. Like the process of just shoulders, like becoming stronger in the shoulder area. Incredible to watch.
Mark called him scrawny, by the way.
He's like, I remember when when Shay first got here, he was scrawny.
He said that tonight. Yeah, no, you can tell. And like the work that that man has put into his game, you watch like some of the rookie highlights, even early team Canada stuff. It's like, yeah, it was there. And there's stuff that he was getting to that was incredible. Caitlin Cooper said he plays like a slinky. He really does in the way that he bounces back and forth.
But to get to the level of proficiency that he's at right now required so many hours in the gym. And so it's incredible that he's relishing in the opportunity of becoming the MVP. I was going to say this story yesterday, but we had a crazy Knicks Pacers game. But from like a Canadian perspective, watching a guy win MVP is sort of the culmination of 20 years of Canada basketball developing, too.
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Chapter 6: What was the reaction to Shea's MVP celebration?
Showing to be true that like the best thing about any team right now that's left in the final four is the Oklahoma City Thunder defense. That's the best thing that's happening right now.
Yeah, everybody, you know, if you think about like great defensive teams that won championships, you know, everybody brings up the 0-4 Pistons. That's usually the team everybody brings up. It's like a bunch of scrappy dudes that won off the back of a great defense. I think we need to change that now.
well and maybe in a couple weeks to the 2025 Thunder okay wait one more question before we head out of here SGA obviously got his teammates rollies what was the best gift you've ever given to someone the best gift that I've that I've ever given to somebody yes yeah I mean rollies have you given a roll no no heck no um hmm I would want it to be for my wife I'm trying to think like what's the best gift I've ever given my wife
I mean, I gave her a really great engagement ring. Does that count? That counts. We are taking that. I like that. Does that count? Yeah, sure. And in fact, today, it is now my wife and I's 16th anniversary today. Wow. Well, congratulations. Shout out to Amy. Shout out to Amy. The best. Yes. That's awesome. Oh, my God.
Well, congratulations to Andrew. Congratulations to Amy. Congratulations to SGA for winning the MVP. Thank you to Andrew Schlecht. Thank you to John Krasinski for joining us earlier. Thank you for listening to the Athletic NBA Daily. We will see you guys tomorrow.
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