“I WAS WRONG ABOUT ANT-MAN” – Stephen A. & Perkin SHOCKED Wolves blow out Thunder 143-101 in Game 3

“I WAS WRONG ABOUT ANT-MAN” – Stephen A. & Perkin SHOCKED Wolves blow out Thunder 143-101 in Game 3

wolves in the background game three Thunder taking on the Timberwolves the Wolves getting contributions in areas they didn’t get in games one and two hartinstein here with the miss anthony Edwards gets the loose ball takes it the other way ah you know he was feeling it in this game edwards again with the steal taking it down for another dunk edwards did not have a dunk in the first two games of this series he had two in the first quarter that means that Anthony Edwards he was in his Birkin as the kids say let’s take a look at some of the supporting cast terren Shannon Jr came in making his presence felt finishes with the floater then Shannon gets the fast break finishes on the other end with the layup had nine points in the first half three of five from the field shannon had two total points in this series entering game three how about Nas Reed gets the three to go and then Edward swinging it to Reed knocks down another three he was 0 for 12 from beyond the arc in the first two games of this series he finished with two or two from three in the first half how about Julius Randle on defense with a closeout contest on Jayla Williams forcing a miss right there randall switches on SGA gets the contest right there on a step back jumper randall held OKC to 412 from the field on the primary defender they win this one here’s the NBA countdown crew well gentlemen we just watched a tale of two entirely different teams i thought we knew who the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Wolves were and they seem to have freaky Friday in this game stephen A what did you learn about Minnesota i didn’t know what the hell I was talking about let’s let the world know that i mean I thought that they were going to come in here well I’m an honest man it’s it’s a it’s a rare moment hold on to it my brother hold on to it the bottom line is I expected the Minnesota Timberwolves to come in here looking at a team that couldn’t put the ball on the floor couldn’t really really score from the perimeter was getting pushed off the three-point line didn’t know what to do and they hit 50% of their threes in in game in game three 20 of 40 they shot 50% better than 50% from the field i didn’t recognize this team tonight compared to what we saw in games one and two but hats off to them ant-man led the charge cuz he came out ultra aggressive julius Randle was putting the ball on the floor nas Reed and them came off the bench and they were making things happen they deserve a lot of credit and hopefully this wasn’t a one-off they show up and play like this in game four we’ve got ourselves a series so what we saw tonight was the A+ version of the of the Timberwolves now the question is they don’t have to do this and I don’t expect this to happen again 40 points victory but they got a they they had a D minus C minus in Oklahoma City right so can they show up on on Monday with a B B+ A minus doesn’t that be this but they can’t i don’t see this happening again but they did it when they had to do it right and the Thunder conversely that was I don’t I don’t know what that was cuz that’s not what we saw in Oklahoma City that’s not what we’re used to for me I understand why you win or why you lose they didn’t turn the ball over tonight julius Randall got going and their bench was outstanding chris Finch went to Terrence Shannon Jr nine points in that second quarter huge coaching move by Finchy great job and his guy delivered for him terrence Shannon Jr outscored anybody on the Thunder squad that That’s what we’re talking about in this game i mean look he was new in the rotation right he probably wasn’t even in the Scotland report so that’s what ended up happening you come in and all of a sudden you just hit him with hit him by surprise but again I’m looking at this Minnesota team and I compare them to like a iPhone right like in what way hit me out to iPhone well we’ll try they signal been weak you know why because they tower been down you know who’s been that tower this entire season this entire postseason it’s been Julius Randall all of a sudden he come out he had a plus 38 now all of a sudden them balls them signals are stronger you can hear me a little bit louder on the cell phone now that’s what I’m looking at tonight and he responded in great fashion after getting benched in the fourth quarter right he didn’t feel sorry for himself he came out there he competed i saw him getting engaged with the fans he was dabbing up his teammates true professional that’s nice and we’re going to see how OKC responds to that now cuz what were we raving about coming into this game how elite their defense was it was non-existent in game three what’s going to happen in game four on the road we’ll see we were all standing back there in the back hallways of this arena as the Timberwolves were coming back in there was no whooping there was no hollering there was going into the game after game two he talked about feeling tired going into the game well if you take that into account in this game there you go anthony Edwards though finished with his uh 15th career 30point playoff game if you want to put that in perspective and we do all other Timberwolves players have combined for 15 of those games all of them the next closest player is Kevin Garnett with seven all right Tim Legler here now on Sports Center look if there was any question how the Wolves would respond at home after two dismal performances in OKC we got that answer real quick in a hurry especially Anthony Edwards 16 points in that first quarter what changed for them i just thought there was the appropriate level of energy you have to have against Oklahoma City i didn’t see that in games one and two that meant there was no swagger there the swagger was there from the beginning their best player came out got them started as you mentioned with Anthony Edwards i thought that set the tone for their entire team you know you tend to relax when you know your best players in a good place and his aggressiveness getting out in the open floor his first two dunks of the series he got in that first quarter and his step back three was working that dual threat anthony Edwards gave us that another thing though I think that mattered Michael in in their zone defense that they played in game two I thought it put a passive mentality into their heads this is a team full of athletes they’ve got size they’ve got lateral speed you might not be able to beat Oklahoma City in a series but I think the best bet is to turn them loose against those guys man up take the challenge use your activity and your athleticism they did that tonight the activity level was off the charts and I thought it really kind of throttled Oklahoma City they just did not get any rhythm whatsoever in this game so let’s go to the other side cuz you mentioned how when your best guy is playing well you feel more confident the Thunder didn’t have that their best player the league MVP four for 13 in this game was Shay Gilis Alexander obviously that has to change in game four but what was what led to that here in game three well there’s no doubt that they had him targeted as a priority we’re not going to let you come down and get these high ball screens these brush screens and just eat us up right down the center of the floor getting to your sweet spots which means either a pullup jumper or getting to the foul line four free throw attempts in this game he had 28 in the first two games so they played him without fouling but more importantly they just committed extra bodies to his driving paths fourth kickouts oklahoma City is not a high volume three-point shooting team i think Minnesota made a determination we’re not watching that anymore because the 38 he got in game two was easy everything about it was literally looked like a practice performance i think they saw the film they took it personally they were going to load up on Shay on the edges of the lane force the kick outs get close outs with a hand up and they were count on the fact that Oklahoma City was not going to make enough threes to beat him now the game got so out of hand in the second quarter we’ll never really know but the tone was set how they wanted to approach this game it was very effective and as we are saying they’re back in the series so now the question is for Oklahoma City how would they respond in game four again trying to get it back to OKC tim’s coming back a little bit more because there’s another series we need to talk about here on Saturday night no you and I haven’t worked together but now Michael Malone and I have these standing appointments postgame so here we are for our conversation like there’s only one way to describe this game and that was just like Wolves they jumped out on the thunder like out of the gates never slowed down which was a complete reversal from what we’ve seen in the first two games what stood out to you though i could give you all the stats in the world but to me what really stood out was just how aggressive and how physical and how urgent the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight you didn’t see that in game one and two in OKC i felt Rudy Goar had a really big uh uh influence on tonight’s game his aggression defensively had two steals in the first half being aggressive in the pick and roll not letting Shay get comfortable and they got out and ran that was a a really big change of events minnesota took care of the ball tonight they did not do that on the road and that fueled their break and you got to give a lot of love to Julius Randall after the first quarter in game one struggled as of late but I thought Julius Randle was a differencemaker tonight was really aggressive scored the ball uh and once again he was aggressive attacking the basket not settling and putting pressure the most aggressive teams when you have a two really equally talented teams the most aggressive team usually wins and I thought Minnesota was by far the more aggressive and the more physical team tonight and you see the clips of Julius Randall getting into a rhythm shooting into a big basket and they’re going to need even more come game four if they’re going to have a chance to tie this up okay so the Thunder I mean we talk about how dominant they’ve been all season they’re used to doing what was done to them tonight they’re used to doing that to other teams not so much being on the receiving end so when you look ahead to game four what adjustments do they have to make to not have this happen again well obviously it starts with the MVP shay came off of a 38-point game in game two held to 14 tonight only four free throw attempts and had six turnovers so he’s got to set the stage you can see right here he had some really good looks that didn’t go down there’s no doubt in my mind that Shay will be more than ready for the opportunity come game four but it starts and ends with him then behind Shay and his influence and his impact in game four he needs some help chad Homegrren Jaylen Williams especially got to step up and make shots when all the all the focus on the defense from Minnesota is worried about Shay other guys got to step up and make plays and uh game four should be a great environment here here’s my analysis whatever you did tonight don’t do that again uh game four by the way Monday 8:30 Eastern on ESPN we’ll talk then okay hello that’s Oh my god foreign speech foreign speech foreign speech let me go my Put in there mech but I mean got some Hit that [Music] [Music] blanch [Music] what’s your is banana what I [Music] mean by that What are you

“I WAS WRONG ABOUT ANT-MAN” – Stephen A. & Perkin SHOCKED Wolves blow out Thunder 143-101 in Game 3