Round 1: LAL

[Calinks]

Cannot wait until we shock the sports world and sweep the Lakers. I live near LA and am anticipating a lot of sorrow from their fans. I will collect their tears on a shot glass.

If we managed to sweep the Lakers these playoffs have the potential to provide better feels than last year and last year was euphoric! Sweeping the Lakers probably go down as our best series performance ever. If we had elite BBIQ it might be possible, we have to play out of our minds though.

[younggunsmn]

Ant has 5 years and 400+ pro games under his belt.

And?

LeBron James didn't win his first title until he had played 689 games. Michael Jordan took 509 games. Shaquille O'Neal took 534 games. None of them were drafted to what was at the time the least successful franchise in all four major professional sports.

"Took X years/games to win a title" is a dishonest argument. Winning it all is not an honest measurement of growth.

Those guys all were all largely who they would become at their peak by 400 games, if not a lot sooner.
Their winning habits and offensive/defensive identities were all well established by year 2 or 3 and those years were also right up there with their best if you want to judge by statistical benchmarks..

Winning titles came because their supporting casts improved and those teams developed winning chemistry and winning culture, which you can't win a title without.

I want to believe Ant is going to get better and develop those winning habits and drop the losing habits.
But seeing regression in BBIQ and maturity from year 4 to year 5 makes me somewhat pessimistic.
1. Terrible late game and late shot clock decision making
2. A large increase in whining about fouls and inability to handle adversity or control his emotions on the basketball court.
3. Lack of buy in and at times a willful disregard for the intentions of his coach.
4. Inconsistent effort defensively.

These are all hallmarks of losing players and when Ant starts turning those 4 things around, only then will we see real growth from him.
There's nothing he can add to his game in the gym this summer that will turn him into an MVP candidate.
The growth he needs has to come from his mind and seeing the game unfold before him on the court.
That means a lot of time in film study and discussing the game with coaches.
Yoga or meditation or some other form of peaceful mental discipline probably wouldnt hurt either.

I would give Ant 3 goals for next year:

1. Improve your Assist/TO ratio to 2.0/1 or better.
His A/TO in his 5 years have been:
1.3
1.4
1.4
1.7
1.4
He's never going to be a MVP caliber player with those poor numbers.

SGA's Ast/TO have been 1.9 or higher in each of those same 5 years, with 2.4 this year.
He was at 1.7 his first year in OKC.
The best way to improve that in the short term is to worry about what you can control and that's eliminating your own sloppy turnovers from stuff like having a poor handle, dribbling into traffic, and not getting rid of the ball quickly enough when you recognize double and triple teams forming.

2. Get your effective FG% to 60%. That means you shoot 40% from 3 and 60% from 2.
And that all comes down to 2 things: shot selection and finishing around the basket

3. Get us back to being the #1 defense we were last year. Be a leader on that end of the court like you are on the offensive end.
Defense is not an opportunity to catch your breath for your next scoring opportunity.

[FrenchMinnyFan]

I'm not worry about ANT. He is locked and when he is focus, he is near MVP level. How the others take responsibilities will be the key. ANT will be double most of the time and if he find the open guy, this one has to score. Name Randle, DDV, Jaden or others.
Rudy will also be very important, he should dominate the series inside.
I am on vacation and try to kill time playing golf (pretty poorly) and do some shopping with Madam but i can't wait series start. Go Wolves!

Nice! Where’s vacation?

At home. Thailand is not a bad place to live! Good food, nice golf course, Wolves games early morning !

[shrink]

No excuses Finch has coached Ant since he was 19 years old, Ant plays smarter and better for usa head coaches..Finch is a diservice to Ant’s career because he lets him do whatever and hasn’t taught him to play smarter at all!

I don’t remember it that way. He played well against the weak teams early in the Olympics, but kept making mistakes, and had his minutes cut in favor of Devin Booker. In the first four games, he played 17-21 minutes, and his +/- was +12 to +19. In the semi’s against Serbia, he played 13 minutes and was -14, and in the finals against France he played 10 minutes, and was -5.

https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/mens-olympic-basketball-tournament-paris-2024/teams/usa/347171-anthony-edwards

[TimberKat]

No excuses Finch has coached Ant since he was 19 years old, Ant plays smarter and better for usa head coaches..Finch is a diservice to Ant’s career because he lets him do whatever and hasn’t taught him to play smarter at all!

I don’t remember it that way. He played well against the weak teams early in the Olympics, but kept making mistakes, and had his minutes cut in favor of Devin Booker. In the first four games, he played 17-21 minutes, and his +/- was +12 to +19. In the semi’s against Serbia, he played 13 minutes and was -14, and in the finals against France he played 10 minutes, and was -5.

https://www.fiba.basketball/en/events/mens-olympic-basketball-tournament-paris-2024/teams/usa/347171-anthony-edwards

Yes, look at his NBA draft report, Ant always had low BBIQ. Maybe if he went to a major program like Duke or UNC could had helped.

[cmoss84]

Cannot wait until we shock the sports world and sweep the Lakers. I live near LA and am anticipating a lot of sorrow from their fans. I will collect their tears on a shot glass.

The collection has started. The glass is tempting to even smell, but I cannot until it is full.

[KGdaBom]

Twolves win in. 6 that’s my prediction. Please don’t get mad.

I got Wolves in 5.

[Guest84]

Serious question: What exactly was the media looking at to determine that the Lakers were "x" much better than the wolves?

We understand the wolves propensity to give up leads and poor crunch time execution at times. However, to say that LA would beat them 4-1 (which could still happen) is baffling to me. LA is top heavy while the wolves have a more balanced roster. Is it simply because of LBJ, Luka, and AR? Did they not account for the rest of the rosters?

From what I've seen, they're basing it solely off Luka's play in the WCF. Not realizing he's not on that same team anymore with bigs to match MIN, a Kyrie Irving, etc.

While I'm not sure it'll happen, I hope the wolves give them the Phx treatment so nobody can say anything.

[Guest84]

Watch on YouTube

Interesting take other than ragging on Rudy. They put it on coaching interesting enough.

[winforlose]

This made me smile.

Watch on YouTube

[Loaf_of_bread]

Liked that Finch mentioned postgame we need to play faster.

[Note30]

I have a feeling we're gonna see some **** from the refs the next game.

[younggunsmn]

This made me smile.

Watch on YouTube

Lol. That was funny.

AI is getting scary.

[cmoss84]

This made me smile.

Watch on YouTube

Thanks. Now I have to change me britches.

[KGdaBom]

I expect us to win this series. I expect to meet the Warriors in the 2nd round and beat them. I expect us to face OKC in the WCF and that will be one hell of a challenge. I don't expect us to win against them, but I sure don't rule it out.

[KGdaBom]

This made me smile.

Watch on YouTube

That was funny as hell.

[younggunsmn]

Watch on YouTube

[cmoss84]

Cannot wait until we shock the sports world and sweep the Lakers. I live near LA and am anticipating a lot of sorrow from their fans. I will collect their tears on a shot glass.

If we managed to sweep the Lakers these playoffs have the potential to provide better feels than last year and last year was euphoric! Sweeping the Lakers probably go down as our best series performance ever. If we had elite BBIQ it might be possible, we have to play out of our minds though.

No sweep but a knock out punch in LA game 5 would be sweet. Maybe I'll call my shot o' tears knockout punch. Get your shotglasses people.

[Baseline81]

No sweep but a knock out punch in LA game 5 would be sweet. Maybe I'll call my shot o' tears knockout punch. Get your shotglasses people.

Ain't no way the league is allowing the Wolves to waltz into LA and knock them out. I see another replay of game two.

[winforlose]

No sweep but a knock out punch in LA game 5 would be sweet. Maybe I'll call my shot o' tears knockout punch. Get your shotglasses people.

Ain't no way the league is allowing the Wolves to waltz into LA and knock them out. I see another replay of game two.

We shot 8 more free throws and benefited from some nice ref mistakes. They also called 4 less fouls on us than LAL. When we avoid the three headed monster of Brothers, Malloy, and Foster we tend to get closer to fair officiating (not always.)