Locked On Wolves POSTCAST: T-Wolves Bounce Back STRONG With Anthony Edwards’ 44 Point Night

Locked On Wolves POSTCAST: T-Wolves Bounce Back STRONG With Anthony Edwards’ 44 Point Night

T-wolves hold on verse the Mavs 118 110 they move to 13 and one that’s right 13- one at home I got wolves expert Tyler metf he’s going to help me break it all down and it’s all coming up next on the lockdown wolves Postcast you are locked on wolves postcast part of lockon Minnesota on the locked on podcast Network your team every day t-wolves bounce back strong vers Dallas tonight they moved to 23 and7 on the year what’s happening everyone back in the lab back at it another t-wolves postcast episode right here on the

Lockdown Sports Minnesota Network you got myself Luke Inman lukor spin that’s the man Tyler mataf he’s on Twitter at teaf 11 and before we jump into all the action tonight quick reminder tonight’s episode it’s brought to you by Game Time download the game time app create an

Account and use code locked on NBA for $20 off your first purchase all right brother let’s just jump right into this one lots to cover I kind of want to break this one down into half so let’s start here wolves maths Target Center 12- one at home this year

Coming in they come out early tonight shooting the lights out of the gym 60% from the floor 71% from ant starts on fire really 20 in the first half I want to say offensive efficiency my point is was through the roof lead as big as 18 but wolves go

Into halftime only up five even though every statistic you looked at Minnesota should have been dominating the one big Bugaboo 15 turnovers MAV scored 20 off those turnovers alone in the first half so a major turnover problem and they just they couldn’t really get out of

Their own way early on and really just gave Dallas too much energy let them hang around despite missing their two best players in Luca and Kyrie and coming off a back-to-back no less talk to me about that first half and what you saw on both ends yeah and it was

Probably the best offense offensive first quarter they’ve had all year at least in terms of shooting the ball where they were seven of 10 from three they were over 80% in terms of effective field goal rate that’s an absurd number you know if you’re in like the 60s

That’s really good they were over 80 around like 83 84% in the first quarter it was absurd it should have been a 20po halftime lead but like you said turnovers and it was brutal um the shooting continued all night though and it was a you know real stpoint um of

Their offense throughout the first half where they were at 74% effective field goal rate in the first half they were on fire from three obviously ant was getting to the line knocking down threes knocking down mid-range jumpers but so is Nas Reed so is Mike Conley so is

Everyone else on the team the shots are falling but they couldn’t complete a pass they couldn’t avoid offensive turnovers um to save their lives is brutal 15 turnovers in the first half when you average 15 on the season is embarrassing it was a really really lazy approach that they had to offense which

Is weird given how effective and efficient they were shooting the ball because you would expect some of those things to translate pretty seamlessly and together and correlate pretty strongly because if you’re knocking down shots at such a high clip you’re expecting that the ball’s moving all over the place that you’re getting good

Shots that you’re optimizing every offensive possession and they simply weren’t they were just knocking down shots at an absurd clip all night yeah and I don’t want to get too In The Weeds on this because it might just go over my head but Jim Pete mentioned during the halftime report

About how the Mavs kept running this highs split action off the top of the floor and basically Jason kid was just milking it as long as he could if you can explain it to me in layman’s terms like what he was talking about what you think the big issue was making the

Adjustment like why is that so tough for a defense if you’re running that so effectively uh yes and turnovers your story of the first half and awful screen navigation was the story of the second half and you know the split action double drag just standard pick and roll

Those are just kind of the three things that Dallas kept going to over and over and over again and the Timberwolves couldn’t stop them it was again just kind of lazy lack of attention to detail uh similar Bugaboo as to what caused all the turnovers um you know when they they’re running the

Split action double drag stuff um a lot of that is getting both Rudy and Cat up high at the level uh defending in space defending the pick and roll there’s confusion on who’s taking who sometimes the guard switched on the screen and no one else did so the ball handler was

Left wide open for a three sometimes two people went to the ball which created a wide open Kickback to an open shooter on the wing there was no communication there was no consistency with the guards and you know Wings getting around the screens and recovering uh to start the

Third quarter there we saw Jaden Hardy just dicing up the defense by simply standard pick and roll stuff get into the middle of the floor and then either throw a lob get a floater a little pullup kick out to the corner it’s the same kind of stuff that we saw Luca get

Over and over and over again in their first matchup we saw Shay get it um whatever he wanted in their second matchup and it’s kind of becoming a common theme with this defense where guys the the real elite ball handlers and now we’re seeing some of

Just kind of the average ones be able to get into the middle of the floor and then dictate whatever they want to do really consistently yeah well said by the way and let’s jump to the the second half now and I’ll just give you the cliff notes here if you guys didn’t

Already watch it they cut down on the turnovers they stiffen up on defense they kept shooting at a a high percentage a high clip and a Edwards man I mean what more can you say 44 points he put the team on his back will them to Victory give us your big takeaways from

The second half and kind of overview from the game in its entirety yeah and they they took better care of the ball um I I think Dallas only had nine points off turnovers in the second half so significant Improvement based on the 20 they gave up in the first half but you

Know Dallas still 26 Point 26% of their points came off of Minnesota turnovers that’s tough that’s really really tough to have over a quarter of your points off of turnovers not not great and it’s easily avoidable stuff where you know when you look at the rest of the league

And the the mo the teams that average the most turnovers it’s like the Pistons the Spurs the Wizards the Hornets the Timberwolves and the Warriors it’s a lot of those teams aren’t in the same Stratosphere of quality so it’s something they got to clean up um but

The the big story tonight was Anthony Edwards it just impeccable scoring performance um this is these last two games are why we we’ve always kind of preached and wanted him to attack the rim at will 18 free throws tonight 13 against the Thunder that’s that’s where

You get the easy points and the fact that he’s starting to get these calls hopefully a little more consistently opens up a lot of different opportunities and it allows him to got kind of go from the consistently scoring 20 to 25 to the 35 to 40 range like we

See from guys like Shay and Luca and embiid because you get to the line you get the other team in in foul trouble it obviously helps ant’s stat line and his numbers but that also means that when Rudy gets hacked he’s going to the line quicker when cat gets hacked he’s going

To the line quicker Jaden Mike everyone when you get the other team in follow trouble that helps the entire team it obviously helps an the most because he’s the one initiating all of it but there’s kind of a trickle down effect uh W with the rest of the offense yeah and talking

About an here we got to give him some love a little Spotlight for a couple minutes I mean he’s upped his scoring average every year since he’s been the in the league he’s averaging 25.2 this year coming into tonight that’ll obviously inflate a little bit that

Would put him top five all time for wolves players in points per game behind and Caleb so that’s great obviously but his last six games specifically if you remember since that poor shooting night vers the Mavs last time he was coming off that remember hit pointer injury

Kind of had to shake a little rust off still had like 11 assists that night but these last seven games now he’s averaging 30 points and six rebounds that’ll go up even further after tonight’s 44-point game but you mention it he’s getting to the free throw line

At a higher rate in these last seven games in a row now he’s just been attacking the back basket at a higher rate and when he’s been doing that and you’re still shooting well from Deep at a high percentage I guess that’s your recipe and and kind of secret sauce

Right there for 30 plus points a game so again you mentioned it I know he’s getting to the free throw line more I know that was kind of you know one of the few blemishes to his game that everyone talked about hey that’s how he can catapult his game to the next level

With the elite in the NBA what have you seen when it comes to that specifically I guess over these last seven games or two weeks like how does a young player like that get to the line more efficiently like he has been doing is it just getting the calls on a night toight

Consistent basis yeah and a big part of it is you know the the elevated status that he has this year and the calls that you know whether consciously or not uh they go into that it’s a factor um but a lot of it too is just kind of The Craft and the

Change of spa change of speed and the change of Direction dribbling and stuff that he’s doing especially out of the pick and roll where when he’s coming off those goar screens he’s doing such a better job of kind of snaking his way through the lane keeping his primary

Defender on his back and kind of keeping him in jail not letting him get rims side and then the second that drop Defender kind of takes a step back towards Rudy to you know try and take away a lob or dump off pass to him that’s when he keep that’s when he’s

Continuously exploding to the rim and kind of catching both Defenders out of position at at the last moment and they’re having to just kind of swipe down or jum late with him and we’re seeing when you don’t have an elite rim protector out there he’s able to get to the line pretty

Consistently yeah well said that was a lot of fun to watch tonight he had some insane nasty Shots tonight obviously that’s going to happen when you score 44 points but that fade away off glass oppos shoulder stop it man I mean just INF fego Chef’s kits absolute thing of

Beauty you love to see it I got a couple more on tonight’s big win versus the mass but first first a quick word from our sponsors over at game time quick reminder tonight’s episode brought to you by game time because you should never have to worry when buying

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Maybe I’m getting a little nitpicky here and and it’s only one game here out of 82 so no need to overreact but what’s one thing that worries you the most about this team when you saw them at halftime right let’s Circle all the way back to what we opened up with knowing

They should be up 15 or 20 versus team again on a back toback missing their two best players like what’s something that they need to continue to work on in the big picture over the long run if they do want to be one of the best teams in the

NBA and go deep in the playoffs I know the easy answer is just stop turning the ball over but is there another layer to it that you’ve seen um yeah and the turnovers are the big one and kind of the most easily correctable um I think

Um you know based on kind of how they’re playing right now but a lot of that kind of goes into just the overall approach um to the offense where there was very little ball movement tonight um in general and I you know I know Mike still

Had six assists ant had four you know sprinkling of a couple here and there for a bunch of the other guys but there were so many possessions that one or zero passes and whether it’s Anthony Edwards just dribbling a ton um obviously when he has a night like this

And getting 18 free throws you get a you get a bit of a longer leash to do that um but then anytime anyone else touched the ball they were jacking up shots immediately and it kind of felt like they figured they were never getting the ball back unless they shot it so it’s

Like all right this is my one opportunity so I have a glimmer of hope let’s take the shot because because I doubt that when I make that extra pass that it’s going to eventually come back to me so again one night we’ve seen it pop up a couple times but it would be

Nice to see them run a little more motion stuff a little more ball movement a little more consistently that would hopefully kind of cut down on some of the turnovers and bail out passes when the double comes other than that it’s trying to find some way to more effectively defend the mid-range um

They’ve gotten they’re they’re starting to pretty consistently get diced up in that range um especially defending the pick and roll so point of attack Defenders have to do better with their screen navigation at the start and tonight Rudy kind of struggled figuring out his levels um when to bail out when

To kind of step forward couple fouls on jump Shooters so figuring out how to more effectively defend the mid-range uh without totally giving up the you know open threes or shots at The Rim is something they kind of have to it’s a really tough line to walk um but I I

Think they need to do a little bet little bit better job of it because these last couple weeks we we’ve seen some cracks in the foundation yeah well said and and you and I haven’t talked ball in over a week so let me pick your brain real quick about Tuesday’s loss

Versus OKC just real quick super out of character defense that night uh highest field goal percentage all year most assists allowed all year 35 I believe second most points allowed and field goals made allowed all year and granted I mean sometimes you just throw your hands up thunder just might have brought

Their aame that night what are you going to do s got in the paint all night sticking mid game shots uh uh left and right he was Unstoppable unguardable that dude’s legit reminded me actually a lot of Joel embiid versus the Sixers and exactly how he killed the Wolves down in

The pain but they got the wolves on their heels all game what what were you hoping they’d clean up the most from that one coming into tonight and and did you see that from them versus the Mavs tonight or was it a lot of more of the

Same from what you just mentioned it was a lot more of the same um you know in that OKC game I was really hoping that Jaden was going to present a bigger yeah obstacle to Shay and you know Shay’s top three top four top five in MVP voting

Right now he is absurd he is playing out of his mind um very real deal so for him to put up big numbers it’s not shocking but when you have a guy like Jane McDaniels who’s as good of a Defender as he is you’d hope that there would be a

Little more stuff there a little more um deterrence of allowing Shay to get to wherever he wants it’s not a total indictment on Jaden because Shay’s been doing that to everyone all year but then you kind of compound that with the turnovers that they had in that game too

And then all of those kind of issues with the screen navigation with the miscommunication off ball with off ball screens and then the turnovers it all kind of funneled into this one and is a much closer win than it should have been with a team that’s missing both Kyrie

And Luca yeah and and so far I mean this team they’ve done such a great job bouncing back after tough outings this year especially on defense in fact fifth longest streak without losing two in a row since the 2019 2020 season 30 games now after tonight bucks by the way lead

The NBA with 63 um you just mentioned the Mavs a little bit here just give me a quick 60 seconds on this team here because I mean sometimes too you know I mean it’s okay to give credit to the other team right I mean they fought hard

All night too all things can considering you mentioned it no Luca no Kyrie tonight but when both those guys were healthy I mean you’re talking about the third best team in the west at the time so what what’s your quick snapshot on them and what they could look like when

Fully healthy here down the stretch yeah we Luca had an absurd outing when yeah you know in our first matchup and again kind of similar to Shay he’s been doing that all year another guy who’s top three four five however you want to order it an MVP voting so I that’s

Always going to be there from Luca especially when we get into the playoffs we’ve seen what he’s done to the Clippers in the past couple years um he can win a playoff series on his own and now that they have a rookie like Derrik Lively who’s just a perfect kind of

Plug-and playay low maintenance rim protector Rim Runner um it it’s one of the most ideal kind of rookie team fits from this last draft and it’s that rare immediate impact from a rookie he struggled tonight he didn’t do much got in foul trouble but when he’s on the court with Luca uh compared

To when Luca is off it’s night and day because he just constantly gets set up with easy lobs and tipin because of the way that Luca pressures the rim so I’m really excited to see kind of how they look with a bigger sample size with Kyrie out there how they kind of find

That balance between him and Luca um I’m assuming it’s going to make him more difficult and you know kind of take some of the burden away from LCA sorry to Circle back again to that first matchup but is kind of a war of attrition where they wore Luka down they made him do

Everything and he was exhausted by the end of that you have Kyrie out there and able to kind of spell some of those minutes again maybe that game looks a little different yeah well said all right I got a couple more to close here real quick we’ll check out the schedule

But first a quick word from FanDuel quick reminder tonight’s episode brought to you by FanDuel right now check this out new customers you’re getting $150 in bonus bets when you win just a $5 moneyline wager $150 in bonus bets when you throw down and win any $5 moneyline

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Doesn’t let up Lakers knicks Pelicans Rockets all right Mavs again Luca should be healthy maybe Kyrie as well magic Celtics it’s a gauntlet man again I feel like I’m been saying oh it’s a gauntlet on the show for like five weeks quick thoughts when you hear that stretch

Though especially after what you’ve seen the you know past two three games let’s go 500 right I’ll take it let I you know in the past Orlando’s you know been kind of viewed as a rollover team they’re not this year they’re one of the better defenses in the league and

They’ve always given Minnesota fits um Houston has been really good at home and really awful on the road um so they’re kind of a a jackal and hide type team then you know they they’re it’s a long stretch of teams looking for playoff burst and with and some with very deep

Playoff expectations so it’ll be a really fun stretch hopefully um you know last time we had one of these that it went a little better than we initially thought so hopefully we’re um kind of in store for that again but it’s going to be tough it’s going to be really tough

And I I think a really good kind of test of their character and their resiliency and um how they react when they kind of get hit in the face yeah absolutely and two to that point I mean no arguing that’s a tough stretch 100% hands down but I also

Guarantee you each one of those teams is also probably thinking hey you know what that we’ve got a tough matchup coming up uh when they look on the schedule on paper you see the Minnesota Timberwolves on Duck as well I I mean just that’s how well they’ve played now this year 23-7

13- one at home consistently night in and night out that’s how solidified how dominant they’ve been this year um all right last one we got a couple more minutes let’s just talk about Mike connley man it’s just been incredible to watch someone this deep in their career

18th season now having a breakout year shooting the ball isn’t it I mean assuming he plays 20 years right two more fully healthy Seasons he doesn’t look like he’s wearing down anytime soon where does he fit in with the greats of this generation Damen Lillard Chris Paul

Steph Curry Kyrie all those kind of guys um I mean when we look at the numbers probably a lot closer to them than we may initially think just because I don’t know like f first thing when I think of Mike Conley first thing I think of is

Not oh prolific shooter and right it’s because like the he’s never been a huge volume guy because he’s just so Adept at picking his spots and making the right decision and there so rarely does he kind of get in the zone of all right I

Have to take over and I have to take these shots you know he does that what maybe once a month um so you know tonight again two for four that’s just kind of the trend with him so I I don’t think the volume will ever kind of get

There to the point where he’s mentioned in that class because he’s not taking these tough you know 35 foot step backs over strong contest and sprinting off screens and hitting follow away three while drifting into the second row but efficiency wise he’s going to be right

At the top of that list because he’s just so his decision making his shot selection his passing all of it it’s just always the right decision and whenever he does something on the court it’s so rare where you’re like Mike what the heck was that what were you thinking

It’s never that it’s always like oh yeah no that that makes sense yeah we’ll roll with it yeah oh it’s Conley oh b b did it oh we’re cool with that 18 years in the pros first time he’s ever called bite bite I love it you gotta love it man you never know

What you’re gonna get with this team uh you could argue too to your point he’s made more key clutch shots than anyone on the team outside of ant right even more than cat I mean the guy he just kind of gets it doesn’t he’s just that crafty veteran all the cliches that come

Along with the crafty 18-year veteran he’s a leader he knows when to let other guys shine he knows when to step up and take the big shots on his own and again just as you said arguably playing as good as we’ve seen in year 18 46% from

Threo 47% from the floor that’s coming into tonight one three-pointer made in 40 consecutive games in a row two of four tonight you already mentioned that that’s top four longest though in the NBA for an active streak second longest streak in the NBA for a player 35 years

Or older LeBron James holds that record with 49 games all right any last final parting thoughts on the Wolves tonight you know I saw a lot of people in the comment section say this was definitely one of those games the old wolves definitely would have lost your thoughts

On that or you ready to kind of put last year in the past and move on with that that whole kind of topic I guess yeah I feel like I’ve been a broken record with that saying all season where it’s like you know at this point we’ve said that

What a dozen times at least so it’s like these are this is a new team this is who they are this year they’ve you know shown that they’re a top team because they kind of keep grinding out these wins that drink you know they would have lost

Last year so I I think we kind of have to put that to bed and recognize it’s a new team and kind of change our perspective um when these games go the way they do and instead of being like oh man tough win that was great you know

They really fought through it they’re I I think they have legitimate title aspirations at this point so we kind of need to nitpick and be like why was this so close what do they need to fix what can they correct was this just an off night did they where they struggled on

Doing some of the little things they took their opponent for granted but still fought out the win or are there major kind of structural things that they need to continue to work on so I really think that this team has elevated to a to a point in terms of quality and

Legitimate title aspirations where kind of let them off the hook if we’re just like oh man they they they took a step forward and won a game that they should have yeah well said wolves bounce back strong 118 110 they moved to 23 and7 on

The year 13- one at home as always huge shout out to everyone that joined us in the postcast tonight rest assured we’ll be back each and every game same time same place right here to break it all down and quick reminder go check out all of Tyler’s work on Twitter as well at

Teaf 11 anything new since the last time we’ve talked it’s been about a week and a half 10 days or so that wolves fans maybe should be out on the lookout for that maybe they can dive into uh just the team over at kupus decom always has

Great stuff going up over there um hopefully in the next week or so I’ll put something together on some of their turnovers or screen navigation stuff and kind of try and highlight what I’ve been complaining about love that can’t wait to dive into that that’ll do it for us

Tonight next on Deck who we got next uh Lakers next on Deck it’s the lake show no wait maybe yes yeah Lakers sorry Lakers okay yeah I I had a second guess it myself as well lake show next on Deck join us again right here for the entire

Recap and follow all our work over at the lockdown Sports Minnesota Network one more plug if you haven’t already you got to go check out Ben Beacon over in the Lockton wolves podcast as well he’s Tyler meaf I’m Luke Inman on Twitter at lukor spin until next time signing out

The Minnesota Timberwolves shake off their loss Tuesday night thanks to Anthony Edwards’ 44 point night. Join Luke Inman and Jack Borman for the deep dive breakdown.