Colin Cowherd: Anthony Edwards is TOO INCONSISTENT for Timberwolves to beat Thunder | THE HERD NBA

Colin Cowherd: Anthony Edwards is TOO INCONSISTENT for Timberwolves to beat Thunder | THE HERD NBA

There is something to be said about consistency and I thought I thought Minnesota gave it everything they had. Minnesota actually J-Mack won the box score. Field goal percentage, three-point percentage, assists, rebounds, fast break points, points in the paint. All Minnesota. Oklahoma City won the game. All right, let’s Is this going to be a coronation? Is that what we’re doing? We’re just Hey, OKC is the best. They’re going to start a dynasty. SGAA for president. Is this what we’re doing today? Well, let’s let’s get down to what is the difference in the series. They’re both led by a significant talent at guard. The two best players in the series are SGA for OKC and Ant for Minnesota. Ant has more flash. He’s more athletically dynamic. He’s more vertical. We kind of want him to be MVP. SGA is the MVP. And you get the same game every night. That’s why Oklahoma City in these late game clutch time stretches is very very good. SGA scored less than 20 points one time in the regular season. Ant 15 times and they’re both the centerpiece of the offense. And part of it is Ant is 23 and SGA is 26. Ant isn’t as refined. SGA is more focused, more refined, um uh more consistent. You know what you get. He doesn’t fall out of his game regardless of what you throw at him. He makes great decisions. He’s older. The foot’s on the accelerator. SGA averaged 33 a game. Why? Cuz he mostly scored 33 a game. Ant averaged 28 a game, 39 one night, 22 the next night. That’s what his game is. It takes a while. I mean, Tom Cruz is obsessed with movie making. Later in life, last six films, five films, Tom Cruz has realized I’m an action star. No more Rock of Ages, no more Eyes Wide Shot, no more Vanilla Sky. I do action movies. The more I run, the more people go watch. And that’s what he is. And that is great. Older athletes could be a quarterback, could be a point guard. They’re more consistent. You don’t get the highs and the lows. SGA, I mean, Ant still has volatility to his game. SGA is oatmeal for breakfast. He’s a BLT for lunch. And those puppies last forever. All this criticism of SGA is laughable. The the guy can hit threes, great ball handler, uses his length brilliantly, can hit mid-range. There was a play, I think it was in the second quarter, where he bodied a guy a foot taller, Rudy Gobear, and used the left hand, his off hand to score off the glass. It was an incredible move, but he wasn’t dunking over anybody. He was using his body and using his length, and that’s what he does. And it’s not SGA’s job to entertain us. That’s not his job. This whole free throw merchant, he averages 8.8 free throws a game as an MVP. I went and looked this morning at LeBron’s MVP seasons. You know what? He averaged eight free throws a game. Be honest, this is about SGA’s game isn’t fun. And the media and the fans, they prefer a Westbrook or a Derrick Rose or a Stevie Francis or a Marberry or a John Wall or an Iverson. Those are fun and they’re dynamic. So is Ant. SGA is not. He’s just consistently great. The tool belt is completely full. I see a pro. It’s like the quarterback who steps to the line and is great at pre- snap. He’s done his homework. This guy has a left hand, a right hand, range, ball handling, consistency machine, and talk about a guy that uses his length. Yesterday, SGA passed Michael Jordan for the most 30-point games in a season in which you were the MVP. and his scoring isn’t just about him. The Thunder are now 13 and one this season when he scores 40 plus points. That wasn’t the case with Kobe. Sometimes with Kobe, the more he scored, the less everybody else touched it and was involved. His scoring connects with winning and the whole free throw merchant thing. You just don’t like what it looks like. I understand it’s not flashy. It’s not cool, but it wins and it’s consistent. And here’s SGA after. I tried not to worry too much about scoring or making plays or whatever it was. I tried to just like lose myself in the competition, be aggressive, pick my spots. And he does pick his spots. Series is now over. It’s three to one, but it’s over. Anthony Edwards uh had one shot in the first quarter, 13 total shots for the game. And he said after, you know, I didn’t really get enough shots to judge my game. Listen, Jaden McDaniels of the T- Wolves had more shots than Ant. That can’t happen. You can’t be the face of the league and get one shot in the first quarter of the biggest game of the playoffs. Can’t do it. Not interested in excuses. Michael may have been getting tackled by the Pistons. He didn’t have one shot quarters even when he had good teammates. So the because basketball players enter the NBA at 18, 19, 20 years old. You just have to wait. It there are stages of maturity and I think personally and professionally and I’m kind of waiting for him to graduate to the adult consistent stage. He was mostly a non-factor last night. So you can take him out of his game. Everybody knows it. throw a bunch of bodies at him and make him make kind of advanced reads and he’s going to struggle. It’s a lot like a young star quarterback who’s not great at pre- snap stuff. Like it takes Brady six, seven, eight years. Mahomes admit the light didn’t go on until year three. So you can just throw a bunch of stuff at SGA. He’s 26 and he sees it and he can read it. You can throw anything now at Mahomes. Four years ago he was a little confused. All right. four years ago, he had to add lib instead of getting pre- snap blitzes out of the way. And so I think I think sometimes Ant relies too much on these sensational plays and and his athleticism. And he’s great, but he’s not consistently half to half great. And I, you know, I’m I’m looking at some of the numbers this morning. The other thing that really hurts is that Oklahoma City’s defense is not only great, it’s historically great. It’s deep. It’s young. It’s twitchy. Uh, it’s almost collegiate in its energy and they throw a bunch of bodies at him and so but but let’s defend Ant here. Jokic at 23. That’s what Ant is. Ants 23. Joic at 23 got his first MVP. Ant at 23 played for a losing team in Oklahoma City. So Michael Jordan in the 80s before his game was more than just raw scoring. Michael Jordan was having some really bad halves and quarters against the Pistons. Like it happens. It’s just in the NFL, a guy comes in with three, four, five years experience. He’s got a more refined game. Ants isn’t. And so he talked about his night only 13 shots after. I don’t really look at it like I struggled. I didn’t get enough shots to say I struggled. So that’s my that might be how you guys look at it. But yeah, I didn’t struggle at all. It just I made the right play. I guess I urge that I want to get the ball in the rim, put it up there, but don’t want to take bad shots and get your team out of rhythm. So just, you know, playing the game the right way. Yeah, I mean, and LeBron said that I’m playing the game the right way. But LeBron would end up with 34 points and 13 assists and occasionally pass up big shots because he was playing the game the right way. Ant’s not the distributor of LeBron and LeBron wasn’t settling for 13 shots. You may not have trusted LeBron in his prime at the free throw line or even when he was young, but you trusted the productivity. Ant’s not there. He is a highly athletic uh lot of fun, super dynamic, unlimited ceiling, but at this point we’re all kind of waiting and it will come and it will come soon, but he’s not quite there yet. He’s 23. SGA is 26 and you can see the difference in consistency.

Colin Cowherd reacts to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s win over Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals in the NBA playoffs. Is Anthony Edwards not consistent enough to win? What makes OKC’s defense “historically great?” How has Shai Gilgeous-Alexander separated from Edwards?

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