Minnesota Timberwolves dominate Trail Blazers again + All-Star Weekend predictions

Minnesota Timberwolves dominate Trail Blazers again + All-Star Weekend predictions

Hello and welcome into another episode of lock down wolves today is the postgame podcast from the second consecutive Tim rules road wi over the Portland Trail Blazers will break down that game plus an All-Star Weekend preview I’ll give my picks for the uh Three-Point Contest feing Carlon towns the skills competition featured Anthony

Edwards and also uh my pick for the dunk contest too we’ll talk about all that on the show today welcome in you are lock out wolves you are locked on Timberwolves your daily Minnesota Timberwolves podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every Day hello and welcome to lockon wolves podcast part of the lockdown podcast Network your team every day my name is Ben Beacon I’m the host of lockon wolves happy Friday everybody uh Victory Friday it’s also the weekend happy happy weekend and Allstar Weekend one of the

Best weekends of the entire year uh is upon us the wolves get they don’t play again for a week it’s like a week from today when they play again so lots to get to here today let’s uh go ahead and kick this thing off a big thank you

First of all for making lock dead wolves your first list in every day of course this show is free and available everywhere including YouTube as well as all of your favorite audio platforms wherever you like to listen to podcast you can find lockon wolves you can also

Watch on the locked on Sports Minnesota app on both Roku and Amazon Fire TV and you can follow on X at lockone te wolves and also at B Beacon with 2bs two e’s cken all right quick roadmap for today we’re going to start with the Portland game of course this is the postgame

Podcast after all but I’m going to condense things just a little bit so I can get to my allar weekend picks because I love predicting this uh I love checking it out on FanDuel our friendss over at FanDuel we’ll talk about some of those odds um and there’s a lot of

Wolves participation um in this game so all right uh let’s start start with Bulls Blazers so of course Tim rolls beat the Blazers on Tuesday they stayed in Portland the weird um like home and home but not really because both games are in the same city situation but two

Consecutive games against the same team in the same Arena and uh you know there were no variables for either team like they both were there obviously Portland was at home but there was no travel the rest was the same and I was a bit concerned and I said this on Thursday

Show just because neither team really like both teams are looking ah head to the all-star break I’m sure there’s some guys in the Wolves who are and the coaching staff they’re all looking at we got to go to Indie we got to get there you know this like I think it was

Literally the last game of the first quotequote half of the season to tip off for anybody was the Wolves late last night in Portland and all things equal I thought that that would like bring the teams closer together there’d be less of a a variance in terms of like would the

Talent really shine through because the game you know in the Wolves mind like hey let’s just get to the all-star break right well um that’s not what happened in fact it was the opposite to start the ti rolls jumped all over Portland and up 44 to4 at the end of the first quarter

Just an insane it was easily one of the best overall quarters of basketball the timber had played all season um Portland they didn’t shoot the ball well but the Wolves had a couple possessions where like there was one where the Blazers got like a like a 15 foot one-handed runner

At the end of the shot clock because nothing was open like the Wolves were really really good at that point it felt like they could win this game by 50 60 points um and and it was everybody like everyone was scoring everyone was contributing it was yes a lot of ant but

I mean everybody the ball movement was fantastic Conley had like a weird double clutch putback that where he hung in the air was going to pass it and then still like just stuff that like weirdly confident passing but not in a bad way they they turn it over a little too much

Early there were a couple sloppy possessions I think they had four turnovers in the first quarter uh they toned it down a little and finished with 13 for the game which is palatable right um but it was it was all cylinders all cylinders in the first quarter second

Quarter was not the exact opposite because the Wolves at least held their own a little bit offensively but defensively they completely slacked off there just was no intensity and when you’re up 30 in the second quarter second unit comes in I can understand how you know that can slide so Portland

Wins the second quarter by 15 points and now it’s a 15-point game at Halftime but then it continued into the third quarter first part of the third quarter the Blazers got the game all the way down to eight points this was an eight-point game after Minnesota had a 30-point lead in the first

Quarter and then Anthony Edwards showed up and after scoring 41 in Portland on Tuesday he dropped 34 on just 21 shots in this game three of seven on threes was efficient from outside the Arc was efficient at the line seven of eight and another fantastic assist to turnover

Game for Anthony Edwards we’ll talk more about that here in a minute but he’s on a like you could say he was on a heater shooting the ball last night he’s on an assist to turnover called A tyus Jones like heer in that regard over the last week uh it’s been really

Incredible but uh like third quarter the Wolves really did pull away and it became a 23-point game going to the fourth and I mean you had Anthony Edwards trying to actually second quarter Anthony Edwards tried to Bank in a he did Bank in a free throw and like I

No it was first quarter he did that it was his first quarter in a 30-point game Anthony Edwards was like you know what I banked in a couple angle threes you know from just above the break you the last two blowouts the Milwaukee game the Clippers game I’m just going to bank in

A free throw because we’re up 30 in the first quarter uh it’s hilarious but then he tried to do it when it was a closer game I think it was early third quarter he tried to do it again and he missed that was the only free throw he missed

In this game by the way so I guess it kind of serves him right um it’s hilarious when it’s the fourth quarter of a blowout and it’s just kind of your thing is to just bang shots in from everywhere but it’s gonna catch up with

Him and I guess it did in a very nonconsequential inconsequential way with the Miss free throw and a blowout wind but anyway uh um it was a really really fun game overall besides that second quarter and and the first part of the third quarter it was essentially two and a half

Quarters of complete dominance uh and about as dominant as you’re ever going to see uh one NBA team over another it really was um coming into the game I had concerns about turnovers Portland despite being a a bad defensive team they were fourth in the league in

Defensive turnover rate so they do Force OPP opponents to commit turnovers and they did I mean the wolves like I said they had four in the first quarter 13 for the game uh you know a little bit more of a turnover prone game than you’d expect but on the flip side

The wolves have been playing more and more of the high wall coverage they’re blitzing pick and rolls a little bit more often they’re trying to use their length on the perimeter and I I think it’s more about switching up coverages and being able to mix in and and do

Different things rather than only playing drop and they and I should say they haven’t only played drop all season right and that’s part of what Rudy goar’s give it um Rudy goar used to only play Drop coverage in in Utah and Minnesota said hey we we’ll mostly play

Drop when you’re on the for roty but let’s mix in some other coverages they’ve done that lately and they turned Portland over a bunch early in this game and I mean it was also part of part of the wolves um kind of pushing back against Portland

Was they just got a bunch of steals in a row like an I I think it was scoot Henderson picked his pocket like um just the ball pressure the length in passing Lanes things like that forc Portland into 15 turnovers and Minnesota’s defense overall early in the season was

Not turning other teams over and partly that was in part because they were playing a lot of drop and just kind of packing the paint and you know funneling shots to the middle of the floor really to the midrange as much as possible and you know uh I guess the

Next best thing is above the break threes right instead of corner threes instead of pain attempts instead of short shots near the rim um and so opponent effective field goal percentage was very low but the Wolves weren’t forcing that many turnovers and now they’ve mixed this in a little bit

They’re playing a little bit more Zone to switch things up they’re playing a little bit more high wall like they did a couple of years ago almost exclusively um with v on the team and they’re wreaking a little bit more havoc and against a young team like Portland I

Mean like Jeremy Grant’s really the only guy you know Simon style has a little bit of experience but the only perimeter guy with any significant experience on this team in in terms of the Blazers and the Wolves providing some of that you know uh additional pressure on the

Priver really a long way in this game I thought that that was that was a really smart thing that the Wolves did and it also forced their guys to be more active right it forced the Wolves players to be more locked in instead of just not that

They would mail it in defensively but some version of mailing it in was a concern a legitimate concern coming into the last game before the allstar B I don’t think there’s any question about that so I thought that was smart by the timber coaching staff to to use a more

Aggressive defense in this game um to try and uh force the issue I guess in a sense all right I want to do a couple more takeaways I want to talk about ant specifically and then probably Midway through next segment segment I think we’ll get right into allar weekend a lot

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On the free Fire TV channels app all right some takeaways from this one let’s talk about ant I mean come on Anthony Edwards is playing awesome headed into the All-Star break and here’s hoping that he gets some good rest after the game Sunday and um kind of maintains

This extended heater that he’s been on I mean like the there were like I don’t know he’s been playing extremely well going back to what the Dallas game that the Wolves won he only scored nine points in back on January 31st but in the month of February he’s averaging 31

Points on 51 37 83 shooting splits he had that one of 11 from outside the arc against the Clippers but remember he was seven of seven on twos in that game and the assist to turnover was awesome for the month he’s averaging five assists to two turnovers which

Isn’t perfect but over the last four games this is insane over the last four games Anthony Edwards has 26 assists and only four turnovers going back to the Milwaukee win so in this four-game winning streak 26 assists to four turnovers now I’m not suggesting he’s gonna be tus Jones Mike

Connley Monte Morris Trey Jones insert your favorite assisted turnover Champion here I don’t think that’s him that’s not the way he plays and and you know he’s going to be a little bit Lucy gooy he has to be unpredictable to be I shouldn’t say he doesn’t have to be to

Be effective but the more in that direction he goes the better because it’s not just the lack of turnovers it’s also the increase in assists because we’ve seen we’ve seen him like the few games before that he had a game where he had one assist to four turnovers that

Was the win over the Rockets um you go back a little bit further and he had a 12 assist game with four turnovers which is when you also score 32 you can handle 32 and 12 with four turnovers because he’s so high usage and it’s going to

Happen turnovers are going to happen but to see him turn in four straight games um with very very low turnovers I mean he had a nine assist to no turnover at 8 to1 and a s to1 mixed in there and also scoring with volume like in these two Blazers games I mean he

Only had two assists on Tuesday but he had 41 points and then he had 34 points seven assists in this game is just so awesome to see and if that is the start of a trend when it comes to Anthony Edwards taking care of the basketball um

Like we could start to have a serious conversation about like all NBA right I don’t know that we’re there yet honestly like I don’t know that I could sit here with a straight face and I’m not maybe this would be a fun All-Star break topic

For one of the shows next week but talk about like top 15 players top 20 players in the in the league where where guys land I don’t think I could sit here right now and argue Anthony Edwards is a top 15 player I would argue he’s a top

25 player he’s probably right around 20 but all NBA is the top 15 players right essentially I don’t think he’s quite there yet but if this is the thing if now for the last 30 plus games of this season all of a sudden he’s assisted turnover guy plus all the scoring and

The three-point shooting and everything he’s doing then absolutely like let’s have that conversation here in the next month to six weeks if this keeps up that like that’s that really is kind of the final frontier for him um in terms of the overall like obviously he can keep

Getting better in every area but the one thing that he still struggles with is the consistency with his passing and along with that shot selection but again he shooting with efficiency like he’s been an efficient scorer this year uh for him to take as many shots as he does

You just look at Raw field goal percentage 47% is pretty good for somebody who shoots the basketball as much as he does but then we could also talk about you know true shooting effective field goal percentage like those numbers are all positive for Anthony Edwards um so shot selection is

A thing but it really is can he assist while keeping turnovers low um and he’s been doing that lately it’s been awesome to see all right um I don’t really have any other major takeaways from this game other than the Wolves did good enough on the glass they

Ended up a plus 17 and only allowed nine offensive rebounds obviously plus 17 is really good but nine offensive rebounds still a little bit high for Portland but there was a lot of garbage time in this game and just looking at the box score won’t tell you a whole lot um we could

Do studs of Duds here quick before we move into All-Star break I’ll do this pretty quick uh ant obviously 347 and six rebounds two steals only one turnover also had a block he was a plus 3 six in this game which is just funny like nobody else was better than a plus

26 for Minnesota they won this game by what they win by 37 yeah they won by 37 and ant was a plus 36 12 of 21 shooting three of seven on threes seven of eight at the line an awesome ant game also go Carlon towns cat was very efficient in this game um

Good to see after he’d had some rougher games here lately in terms of foul trouble 23 points eight rebounds eight of 13 shooting only shot two threes in this game six of six at the line uh couple of blocks for cat a couple dominant blocks just Walling up at The

Rim as well Rudy was solid I’m not going to give him a stud uh I’m going to give we’ll go uh Jaden McDaniels Jaden really kind of especially in the first quarter was like he wasn’t letting any of these young Blazers P him defensively he was phenomenal played well offensively too

Which was good to see after an oer the other night uh from the field 17 points at six of 11 shooting one of four on threes got to the line four times which is unusual for Jaden made all four free throws five rebounds two steals for Jaden McDaniels very very strong game for

Him I don’t really have any Duds I mean it was a quiet game for slow-mo two points seven he did have seven rebounds in 21 minutes three assists but he had two turnovers not a bad game just a quiet game Alexander Walker had the second best plus minus on the team for

Whatever that’s worth and a lot of it’s because that perimeter defense along with Jaden was fantastic but he was just one ass six from the field and missed all four of his three-point attempts um not you know just one of those nights but not a dud I think everybody played

Well for the most part it was that bench unit was a little shaky in the second quarter but ultimately uh it was just fine so uh we kind of did the first half like 10,000 foot look on Thursday but the wolves are 39 and6 they of course have the Western

Conference or they have the number one spot in the Western Conference I should say they are a game and a half clear of OKC who finished on a two- game win streak in the first half the Wolves now by the way have the best point differential in the Western Conference

Second best in the NBA uh you could just straight Point differential you could also look at the net rating on cleaning the glass which takes out garbage time and uh the wolves are number two there as well so I kind of no matter how you slice it and dice it they’re the second

Best team in the NBA they just are and you could look at the next layer like I mean they split two with Boston they’ve split four with the Thunder they’re two and0 against the Clippers they’re one and0 against the Nuggets like look at the next teams that you would want to

Discuss as the next best teams of the league obviously Philly is not even in the conversation with them beat out uh they’ve beat Milwaukee in the only game they played I’ll be a short-handed Milwaukee team they haven’t played Cleveland yet uh they split two at the Knicks so the wolves have played the

Best teams in the league extremely well and they are legitimately now the second best team in the NBA and there’s really no question about it which is which is just an awesome thing to say um all right I’m gonna tee up what I’ll do next we’ll spend the whole last segment

Talking about Allstar Weekend I’m gonna go I’m going to give my predictions I’m going to say who I think would win in terms of just straight up even odds like if we were just picking straight up who I think will win each competition also give my pick based on the FanDuel odds

Although there are not FanDuel odds for some reason on the Slam Dunk champion um but we’ll talk about that too and then I’ll just give a quick who I think will win the All-Star Game although that’s always such a weird thing and I honestly haven’t studied the rosters that closely

So I’m going to kind of do that on the fly but uh I already have my pick set for the other competitions and you better believe I’ll be over at fandu on on Saturday allar Saturday is one of my favorite days of the year so we’ll get

To all that here next and also obviously ants and Cat are part of the whole thing because they’re each in a competition on Saturday so lots of ant and Cat talk here coming up as well today’s episode of lock out wolves is brought To Us by our friends at Robin

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All-star weekend let’s start with the skills competition because that is the first thing on Saturday aturday night um it’s interesting I I when I looked at this I looked at who was competing before I looked at the odds and I picked team Pacers just based on on who’s on

Each of these teams and I’ll explain why so team Pacers is halberton Benedict mathine who I mentioned earlier Miles Turner team top pick is Paulo banero Anthony Edwards and Victor wanyama and then team Allstars just a bunch of random Allstars Scotty Barnes Tyrese Maxi and Trey young just looking at this

I would have ranked them for a skills competition and this isn’t a three on- Three Tournament right and and I’m assuming they’re not going to drastically change like the nuts and bolts of the competition like what they’re asking these guys to do I would have gone Pacers top pick Allstars but the odds

Are actually reversed or I know they’re not reversed top picks are actually the favorites at plus 140 on FanDuel team Allstars is plus 180 and team Pacers is plus 190 I like I would pick team Pacers both straight up and with the odds as close as they are um I would go team

Pacers at plus 190 my second pick would be team top picks I do think that um what I like about the Pacers is you have a mix of skills but all those guys can shoot and oftentimes this comes down to like I if I remember right in the relay

Everybody’s got to make a three right I’m pretty sure if that’s the case like I don’t know I think that’s the best Trio of Shooters um team top picks got to have B Caro and wanyama hit a three which I know they can do but percentage

Wise what are the odds they hit it on their first try um and also like clearly that Trio has the most like overall the best mix of well actually no you could argue team Allstars does with Barnes Maxi and young in terms of dribbling passing Etc but I think Pacers probably

Has the advantage I think this is the sort of thing also I I not 100% sure ant takes this super seriously I think we talked about this on Wednesday on the basketball party show ant’s gonna be goofing around like I know he’s super competitive um but

Like he also has that goofy streak where he could be a little bit too cool for school sometimes which is really funny for somebody that’s his you know people talk about his Jordan likee competitiveness where he locks in and like you know he’s getting in a stance

Down 20 like he doesn’t that’s 100% true but he’s also Goofy and sometimes he can act a little too cool too cool for school he does that sometimes during games and it’s just a weird combination and it’s partly what’s what’s it’s certainly endearing I think it’s partly

What people really like about an is that he has the ability to not take things too seriously but also be really serious so I don’t know I I actually kind of like team Pacers to win this thing especially a plus 190 I’m excited to see

Ant do it and I hope I’m wrong I hope I obviously hope that ant’s team wins but I would take Pacers up at plus 190 on uh on FanDuel uh the three-point competition this is my favorite event of the weekend and I talked about this a little bit on

The basketball party Wednesday so you might have heard my quick version my quick take there the odds have moved I believe at the time cat was plus 800 and it was the second longest odds he’s down to plus 700 on FanDuel and that’s fourth best odds out of the six contest excuse

Me out of the eight contestants I’m sorry I can’t count fifth best odds out of the eight contestants the only players with longer odds than him are Donan Mitchell at plus 750 Jaylen Brunson at plus 750 and Lori marinan at plus 800 marinin was in at last year and

Did not play or did not perform well um I love cat at plus 700 I really do if I was picking this straight up I might go Tyrese halberton he’s plus 450 the favorite is Dame Lillard who won it last year at plus 390 halton’s the second shortest odds at plus 450 Trey

Young at plus 550 former wolf Mal be plus 650 and then I gave you Cat Mitchell Brunson and marinan um if I had to pick one straight up I’d probably go with halberton um I think the combination of his shot the way he shoots it I think is

Very obviously repeatable um for him and doesn’t need to bring the ball high like doesn’t need to jump super high I think it’s and also he’s a 40 like a legit 40% guy um and and he played well in it last year if I remember correctly I believe

He got past the first round uh and got to the second so I would pick halberton straight up given these odds though cat at plus 700 and by the way there’s some books out there that have cat at even longer odds if FanDuel at plus 700 that’s still that’s great odds to get

Carlon towns the dude won it the last time he was in it he barely jumps doesn’t really jump when he shoots uh the like and that’s the thing I think Jack mentioned this on Jack Borman from K suus mentioned it on Wednesday’s basketball party show that like these

Guards that have to jump their legs get tired or they in order to be quicker and not get tired as fast they alter their shots they’re not jumping as high uh that could be an issue for some of these smaller guys cat just like goes up on

His tiptoes it’s super repeatable uh he could shoot well off a rack and my that would be my one I also like Malik Beasley at plus 650 the one thing that I would shy away from there is the way Malik shoots it he loves to shoot it on

The move and transition he loves to shoot catch and shoot he loves to one dribble shoot I don’t know how he’s going to shoot off of a rack that’s a different motion um and maybe he’s great at it I don’t know but I would be a little bit worried about it just given

The way that Malik Beasley gets his shots in games whereas cat can shoot it flat footed double pump step back catch and shoot off the dribble whatever cat could shoot from any platform uh and that I think to me he should have better odds to win than Malik Beasley I think

He should have better odds than Trey young who’s not actually that good a three-point shooter uh compared to the other guys in the field if you look at the percentages for his career I know he C he can shoot it from the logo but how’s he going to Faire in this

Competition against guys like and by the way Lillard’s not shooting it well from three this season so I understand why he’s the favorite he’s won it before and he’s a good shooter for his career but in games the last couple Seasons he hasn’t been great so I straight up no

Odds I if I just was picking it I would probably say Terry halberton but cat at plus 700 is the best bet it absolutely is and I think there’s a great chance that he wins it so uh that’s where I would go on FanDuel for sure all right

Uh Dunk Contest Saturday night there are not odds right now on FanDuel maybe that’ll change between now early Friday and uh and the contest Saturday night but the favorite of course is ma mclung um currently in the g-league he won it last year had four dunks that he

Converted on the first try I think all but one were perfect 50s and the other one was like a 49 point something um he’s the favorite I think he’ll win it I think there there’s a lot of reasons well the easiest answer is he’s um I I

Guess I don’t know if you’d say he’s the most athletic overall but the the best leaper of all of them he’s got to have a 45 4 46 inch vertical I think he measured at like 44 at the combine few years ago but he jumps out of the gym

He’s only 62 so it looks that much more impressive uh I don’t know you know no odds on Fel so I’m not really sure how the rest of the field Stacks up I would say my second pick would be Jacob toppen he’s I believe won some dunk contests in

College High School whatever uh super athletic 68 which is a little bit of a disadvantage to be so tall for the contest but he’s not he’s lanky which sometimes can look a little more impressive uh so I don’t know I I would go mclung to win it I I depending on how

Big how majorly he’s favored on fandel when this comes out I I don’t know that I would bother betting on it because there’s enough of a if something goes wrong there somebody else could win but if if like everybody convert to their dunks and whatever he’s going to have

The best stuff and it’s going to look the most impressive I I Ma mclung I think is pretty clearly the favorite on on Saturday night all right the game itself uh this is you know we’re going back here I’m not going to talk Rising Stars that’s too hard to

Figure out there’s four teams they play a tournament uh it’ll be fun like the competition will be fun the teams are fun there’s a lot of really good young players it’s also weird there’s no tib rolles players involved although I don’t think there was last year either uh but

You know there’s a couple teams that stand out as as I would say favorites like team pow has wanyama Brandon Miller hakz Jabari Smith it’s got Brandon P pmy from the Warriors and case Wallace from the Thunder like just quickly looking over these rosters um Team deadlift is a

Bunch of g-league guys it’s actually only g-league guys uh I would rank I don’t know I guess I would rank them pow tamama jayen deff in terms of Talent on those teams and also given the format of the game but I think the team with wanyama Brandon Miller

Hakz Jabari Smith psky Cas Wallace and bile kabali like that’s the team that I would I would look for so anyway my quick my quick roster glance for Rising Stars would be team pow uh and the actual All-Star game I don’t know I I think I given that embiid’s not

Playing and I know that like you wouldn’t think that not having a big I don’t know I go back and forth on this I think the West will win I think that um Durant like Durant LeBron Luca Devin Booker I just think there’s enough enough shooting on that team the

East like if Halbert halberton might go nuts um it’s just such a silly thing to try to pick the allstar game I think the West will win um overall I I just think they’re a slightly better roster I don’t you know I I I’m backtracking from what

I said on Wednesday on the basketball party with Chris Finch is the coach I don’t think we’re going to see Carl towns and uh ants play all that much which is totally fine because I always hold my breath in these games anyway um

So we will see I I I I would love to see ant do something awesome and then not play the rest of the game that would be great uh and then cat hopefully gets a ton of Threes up um and hopefully he’s coming off a three-point Championship on

Saturday so that’s my super quick and um unceremonious All-Star pick is that the West will win against the east on Sunday all right that’s all I have for you today on Monday we’ll recap Allstar Weekend and uh set up the rest of the week I do want to get into some bigger

Picture stuff uh next week in terms of you know looking ahead what this team could work on uh might talk a little bit of buyout Market that’s got to get figured out in the next uh week or so the wolves have to make a selection on who they’re going to fill their roster

With uh could be 10day guys you know whatever but we’ll talk about that next week too lots to get to here as we set up the second half unofficial second half really the last third of the schedule unofficial second half of the season it’s all we have for you today

Big thank you for making lock on wolves your first listen every day of course this show is free and available everywhere including YouTube as well as all of your favorite audio platforms wherever you listen to podcast you can find lockon wolves you can also watch on the lockon sports Minnesota app on Roku

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Once again I’m Ben Beacon this is the lockd Wolves podcast and we’ll catch you next time

The Minnesota Timberwolves dominated the Portland Trail Blazers for the second time in as many games this week. Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) has the breakdown of the action of Wolves-Blazers, including the Wolves shocking first quarter and Anthony Edwards’s impressive shut-the-door performance in the third and fourth quarters. Plus, predictions for All-Star Weekend, including Edwards in the Skills Competition, Karl-Anthony Towns in the 3-Point Contest, and the Slam Dunk Contest.

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