Inside the NBA: Can the Wolves Even the Series in Game 2 vs Warriors?

Inside the NBA: Can the Wolves Even the Series in Game 2 vs Warriors?

With Stephen Curry out, the Golden State focus shifts to Jimmy Butler. The Warriors took game one. We await the game two response of Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves. It’s the night’s only playoff game and it’s on T N Golden State and Minnesota coming your way a half hour from now. Welcome back to the playoffs everybody. Thanks for being with us. TNT NBA Tip Off presented by CarMax Studio J here in Atlanta. Ernie Johnson, Shaq, Kenny, Chuck. Uh, it begs to uh it begs the question. From now on, I would like to be addressed as Professor O’Neal cuz when I graduate in two years, I will leave you and become a college professor on mentorship and business administration. Love you. I don’t doubt it. Alabama State. Alabama State. Shut out the camera and say, "I don’t think you have to do I don’t think y’all do the tong thing." Oh, that’s a He’s a cute. Yeah, I I know. You would know nothing about that. No, I don’t want I’m not going to be in no fraternity. I’m not going damn loser dudes getting together all the time. Gosh, no. They do much more. They much do great work in the community. They don’t do anything. Knock it off. They do. No, they don’t. I do. I’m not I’m not a member, but I Well, that good you join. No, I didn’t have time, brother. No time in college. Yeah. Only losers join fraternities. You know who else is in the fraternity? I don’t care who else it is. The greatest player that ever played the game. Yeah, you know the name. Who is that? Michael Jordan. Thank you. Hey, Michael ain’t wasting his time with no fraternity. He is. What are you talking about? He’s a cute. Yeah, he might be, but he ain’t doing nothing with them bombs. Now they b Oh my god. Stop it, man. Just cuz you couldn’t get in for You have to have a grade point average to get in. I did. I couldn’t get 20 points and 10 rebound. I couldn’t get you in. I couldn’t get you in. I’m sorry. Get you anywhere. Have I mentioned tonight’s only game Warriors Timberwolves like I was like I was a number coming your way at 8:30. I can’t wait. Now, if the uh playoffs have shown us anything 50 games in, it’s that a series can swing on a turnover illtimed, a missed free throw, a comeback relentless, threepointers that just won’t fall, and last second prayers that do, or quite possibly in this Golden State Minnesota series, the strain of a hamstring. Stephen Curry will miss at least a week, and the timing couldn’t be worse for Golden State as we get set for game two at Target Center. And that’s where we find Lauren Jabara. Good evening, Laura. How you doing? Hey, EJ. I’m doing good. Thanks so much for having me on. Yeah, like you said, Steph Curry gonna be re-evaluated in about a week. He’s missing games two, three, and four for sure with that left hamstring strain. The first hamstring strain he’s ever had in his professional career. And he obviously was so gracious this morning at shootaround and very emotional talking about it. Take a listen. starting to feel really really good about where we were at and then you kind of get a gut punch like that. So, it was like really emotional at first. Is there going to be a temptation? It’s like, okay, there’s a chance I could reinjure, but I’m still going to play or eventually there’ll be conversations like that. I’m not even anywhere close to that right now. And I know how tricky hamstrings can be where they can fool you and think that it’s healed even if you don’t feel anything. And so, that gray area will be confusing, I’m sure. But uh I’ll do everything in my power to get back as soon as possible. And it is uncharted territory for him. So he doesn’t necessarily know how his body’s going to respond, how long it’s going to take to respond since it is his first ever hamstring injury that he has. He was asked, "Is it like 2016, like 2018 when you were injured in the playoffs?" He said, "No, that was when I was 27 in my prime." He said, "Now 10 years later, you don’t know how many of these opportunities to be in the playoffs are guaranteed for you." So obviously he was in his feels yesterday. He said he was very emotional about it, but now he’s taking a different mental approach. He wants to be strong, and he said he’s going to be ready physically and mentally when his body feels ready to go for that playoff action. I talked to Draymond Green this morning and said, "How do you adjust with no Steph Curry in your lineup?" And he said, "Without Steph on the floor, our margin for error shrinks, so we have to be sharper across the board." And for us, that starts on the defensive end. You can’t afford lapses in effort or focus. and he said, "And look, nobody’s going to be Steph Curry. As much we as we might want someone to step in and do what he does, it’s just not possible." So, it’s not on one guy. It’s on all of us. That’s the beauty of this group, though. He said, "We played 12, 13 deep all year for a reason. Everyone’s been preparing for this kind of moment, and we trust that whoever’s out there is going to be ready to step up and compete." And you know, Steph Curry is going to be leading the way on the sidelines, too. Even at shoot around this morning, you guys, he was under the basket doing stationary rebounding for Draymond, for Brandon Pajki, for Buddy Heels, and a couple of his other teammates. I said, "Daymond, was that weird having Steph rebound for you?" He said, "Oh, absolutely. It’s weird. We’d rather him be on the court, but it’s nice to have him here." Anyways, now on the other side, you have the Timberwolves. Chris Finch not happy with their performance and none of the players were happy with their performance after game one. I asked Chris, I said, "Was it about the shooting?" He said, "Everyone’s been focusing on the shooting, and yes, we need to be better there, but it’s everywhere across the board that we need to do better." He said, "We reverted to a lot of our old habits. We cannot give them 18 offensive rebounds. We have to be better in transition. We have to bring more energy right from the jump." So, that’s the things that they’re focusing on today. And I also talked to Dante Devenenzo about it as well. And he said, "Look, that game was an anomaly for us on the offensive side." He said, "The shooting wasn’t there, but now we focus on controlling what we can control." is that they came in, they threw the first punch, they played with the edge and the identity that we usually pride ourselves on. We didn’t have a rhythm to our offense. They did a good job of taking that away. But tonight, a good challenge for us to step up and a huge opportunity for us to get our rhythm back on the offensive and defensive side. But the one thing, EJ, that Dante said to me too, he said, "Look, we have an opportunity, especially without Steph Curry in the Warriors lineup, to be able to take advantage, but at a certain point, you want to be able to play the best players on the other team." So even though they want to take advantage of know Steph, he’s like I’d rather Steph be in the lineup to be able to play against him and beat the best to be the best. Lauren Jabara, tons of great information in that pregame report. Enjoy the game. Thank you much. Thank you. Carmarmac never settle. We’re going to get into the Steph Curry situation in a second. We’re going to start on the Minnesota side. Uh 95 and a half points a game in the last two. um only 12 out of 76 from deep and Anthony Edwards 1 for 16 from three over the last two games and just 34% shooting. Now look at game one. Uh he came out and didn’t have a field goal in the first half. He had one point. Uh he was 0 for8. Um and after the game very interesting Chris Finch not holding back. That starts with Anthony. you know, he I thought he’s was uh you know, his aunt he struggled early. Um and then you could just kind of see the light go out a little bit. You’re the leader of the team and you got to come out and set the tone. If your shots not going like you you still have to carry the energy. If I got to talk to guys about having the right energy, you know, we’re not on the same page. Just keep shooting. I mean, yeah, that’s the name of the game. You can’t worry about the la the ne the last shot, you know, shoot take the next one. shoot it with confidence. Um, and I think we’ve been doing that. Just didn’t play well. And you know, people gonna try to blame whatever, blame whoever. They blame me. I just didn’t play good enough. You’re only going to be as good as your ability or your willingness or your courage to coach your best players. If you don’t have that, you’re not going to have a lot of accountability in that field room. And that’s where it starts. So, uh, we’re lucky our guys will take it. Um, and you know, if you want the ball in your hands or you want to be in the center of the action or you want to be playing all the minutes, then you’re going to be on that that film. That’s on me, y’all. Courage to coach your best player. That was great stuff. And um I’m just wondering, Shaq, when you think back on your career, have you had coaches call you out? Because like this film session, Dante D. Vincenzo says, "Look, nobody was spared in that." And so, have you had time times when you were called out and how do you think that will affect Anthony Edwards tonight? Yes, but not all the time. You know, growing up and watching guys like Charles and Mike and Dr. J and Kareem and Magic, they took the onus on themselves. They would come out and say before you can say, "My fault. It won’t happen again." So, you know, he has to learn to to understand that this comes with the territory. You want to be known as the best. we as fans, we as teammates, we as the people in the organization, we expect you to play at a certain level every night. So, uh, he he’s he’s a good enough player. I’m gonna give him a pass and say he had off game, but he has to realize in these situations in the playoffs when you’re talking about taking taking down the greats and you already took down LeBron, took down the KD, you can’t have off nights. So, tonight is a game about how both teams respond. You know, usually it’s one team beats one team, one team has to respond. Tonight, two teams have to respond. And how are you going to respond to your coach calling you out? How how you going to respond? And on the Golden State side, how you going to respond? Because in all the practices and all the shoot around, Steph is there. Steph this come off the screen. This this this and now he’s not there. You only had one day to prepare and say, "Okay, Jimmy, you’re the man guy." So, how is both teams going to respond tonight? But answer to your question, yeah, I got called that all the time, but I took it on myself like it is my fault. I’m the guy. I want this pressure. Yeah. Chris Finch says he’s got to set the tone. What kind of a tone do you want do you want set? And do you run the risk of him being too amped or trying to go at it too hard? No, I don’t think so. And Chucky, I’m sorry to jump in front of you in this way, but I think the one thing that being around the greatest players has ever played. I’ve been fortunate to be on teams with. They get called out, but they don’t get called out for the effort. So, he’s been called out for his effort. Like if if if Michael Jordan in college missed shots, no one’s going to say anything. If if Keem Lazar was missing shots, he’s playing with effort. No one says anything. But he called out his effort. You normally don’t have to call that out on a great player. So this is where the response. So I don’t think he’s going to come out amped up taking up shots. He just needs to play harder and from the beginning and play with enthusiasm and effort. Uh there’s a thing that I always believe nothing great in life comes without enthusiasm. and Ant didn’t have enthusiasm in the first quarter and that got their team down and that is something that he’s a magnet for and and if he does that we’re going to see the regular Ant-Man. You uh I’m trying to read your body language here. I can’t even believe that’s I can’t even believe you asked that question to be honest with you. Like Ernie, this man is coaching his team. The notion that today’s players are such wussies that they can’t get criticized is so crazy to me. Every, first of all, every bad player and every great player should want to get coached. And it’s not criticism, it’s coaching. And it’s so frustrating when, you know, when people like, man, I can’t believe he called out this guy. I’m like, that’s his job. What question can you not believe that that he he had to ask that? Yeah. And I’m not taking at you. I’m talking about like, yo, man, he played awful. Yeah. And first of all, he invited the smoke. We want the Warriors. We can say whenever it was, he is one of the best players in the league. He can’t score one p point, one point in a in a home opener of a of a series without Steph Curry. He said he’s the leader. People gonna follow him. That’s the bad thing about being a man. They’re gonna follow you good or bad. And what he was trying to say was when Anon was struggling, his energy was down. The light went out as he said and the rest of the team followed. Yeah. Because they were already they were down 10 before Steph got hurt. But the notion I get so frustrated like no man coach your team get on everybody’s ass. That’s part of coaching. Don’t worry about hurting. That’s the thing I love about Greg Papovich, Tim Duncan and Jenobi and Parker all David Robinson say he yelled at all of us. Yeah. Because what that does is as a coach, it keeps your credibility. Cuz if you ain’t going to yell at me and Shaq, you can’t yell at Kenny. You can’t do that. You can’t yell at the guys. You say, "Well, we Anthony can get away with anything." You ain’t going to never win like that if you let your best player get away with stuff. No Steph Curry tonight for Golden State. Um Jimmy Butler there. Steve Kerr says it’s comforting to know that he’s got Jimmy Butler there and give him the ball. Jimmy says, "Look, I’m not a volume shooter. Never been a volume shooter. Does he need to be a volume shooter now with no step?" I think on the road he needs to test his teammates out. You know, Jimmy’s known to penetrate the lane, kick the other guys, see what the other guys can do. If the other guys can’t do anything that he needs to go on those spurts where he can score six, eight to 10 points, you know, like he does. He’s not a ball shooter, but when he needs to score, he can he can score quickly and score efficiently. But I think he needs to just continue to play like he’s playing, penetrate, get everybody involved. The others going to have to step up if they want to win this game. Yeah, he said they don’t have to win this game, but if they want to win this game, I think the others should step up. It seems to me, and tell me if I’m off base here, uh because you saw the OKC game last night, the blowout of Denver, um after Denver had assured themselves of a of a split there. Um, and I’m not saying this is going to be a blowout, but does Golden State need to keep this really ultra competitive so Minnesota’s not saying, "Hey, they had no Steph and we cruised and and and this and the rest of the series is going to go that way." You got to try to win, Ernie. I’m not saying you’re not trying to win. I’m just saying you’ve got to keep this at all cost to me in this regard because if you get up 200, you you’re buying time for your best player to come back. And for me, I look at Kaminga, Pazinski, and Spencer at this time as we start this game. There is no game plan for them. We don’t We’re not trying to stop them. We don’t We don’t care what they’re trying to do. We don’t have any defensive execution for you. You have to make it add Quinton Post to that, too. He’s in the starting line. You have to make them have a game plan for you tonight. and that and if you do that, you have a chance to win. And for me, I don’t think if I’m Minnesota, if I’m Minnesota and I’m Anthony Edwards and Nas Reed and those guys, I’m saying to myself, let’s stomp they ass tonight because I want them to know y’all can’t beat us without Steph Curry. I want them if I I’m going to send them a message. I’m saying guys, they can’t beat us without Steph Curry. Let’s let them know what the next three games are going to be like without Steph Curry. I’m trying to send him a message because listen, go to Hake and stay all the positive they want to. They’re not gonna beat the Timberwolves without Steph Curry in a seven game series. Now, so I I want I want them to know right now that’s going to be a long ass flight back to San Francisco cuz I’m letting them know tonight, you guys cannot beat us without that man, right? That guy’s one of the greatest basketball players ever. If the thing that concerns me about the Warriors, uh, and it might have to be Draymond, how do they get out in transition, Kenny? because he’s the one who set the pace and I I don’t know who they going to Yeah, I think I think Pazimski and Spencer when they come into the game or in the game they have to be the pace setters and that’s why I was saying like who when they starting unit yeah Draymond’s going to pick it up be that point forward that’s the only thing I could see or or Payton as well can handle the basketball he can do serviceable but that to me is going to be the biggest adjustment how they going to get pace going uh we’ve got game two of that series coming up bottom of the Meanwhile, social media weighing in on uh you don’t understand. We everywhere every day. Let me tell you, let it go. Anytime you have to do stupid stuff to join a club, it’s a stupid club. Don’t be mad cuz you can’t get in. We don’t want you anywhere. Is that a pleasure in

Golden State Warriors vs Minnesota Timberwolves – FULL GAME 2 HIGHLIGHTS | May 8, 2025 | 2025 NBA Playoffs

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