Minnesota Timberwolves promote Luka Garza + a tough matchup against the Phoenix Suns

Minnesota Timberwolves promote Luka Garza + a tough matchup against the Phoenix Suns

Hello and welcome into another episode of lockdown and wolves today on the show Luca Garza gets a big promotion as the Wolves fill their final roster spot plus more details from the ownership Saga the wolves are now second in that rating in the league and an interesting wolves

Suns matchup we haven’t seen Phoenix in almost four months we’ll talk about all that on the show today welcome in you are load 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 the lockdown

Wolves podcast part of the lockdown podcast Network your team every day my name is Ben Beacon I’m the host of lockdown wolves and uh happy Friday everybody happy weekend and happy Wolves game day the tble take on the Phoenix Suns tonight for the first time since November 15th which of course was the

First uh I think it was actually the first loss of the season for the Wolves uh certainly the first significant loss um it was the first loss wasn’t it no it wasn’t the first loss it was the first blowout loss that the Wolves had this

Year way back in November so I want to dig back into what happened then obviously both these teams looked very different but also what the Suns have been up to lately um and why Phoenix I mean I guess no Carlon towns but Phoenix is favored of this game at fandu will by

A few points so lots to get to here today because I want to talk about some other stuff first related to the roster ownership Etc a big thank you off the top though for making lock dead wolves your first listen every single day of course this show is free and available

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Right let’s talk first about Luca Garza it’s a big moment for Luca Garza who of course has been with the Wolves now this is year two with Minnesota and um I you know it’s not the the back story is to why he was promoted I if you missed the

Show it was maybe two weeks ago I talked a little bit about it was actually probably right around when they when they gave TJ Warren the deal for the rest of the year so maybe 10 days ago or so um and I I explained at the time that the

Wolves had two roster spots open that well technically one plus the 10day slot that TJ Warden was signed to twice because initially that was remember Justin Jackson was on the team for two 10 days they then filled that slot with TJ Warren because rules stipulate you

Can only have 13 guys on your roster for X number of days I think it’s like four weeks over the course of the season and no more than two weeks consecutively So eventually they then signed TJ Warren got them to 14 players but they still had an open roster spot available and

You while you can operate with 14 for as much as you want during the season you have to have it full I think I actually off by yeah that’s right you have to actually have it full by the end of the regular season so on the last by the

Last day of the regular season the Wolves were would have been compelled to sign somebody to a a Futures you know to a standard NBA contract right so so sometimes teams will do that essentially like a Futures Contract in the NFL they’ll s somebody uh you know especially team that’s not in the

Playoffs they’ll sign someone who they want to have on the roster for the summer or whatever um and that’s just kind of how you know some of these teams operate with the end of the roster what the Wolves decided to do is actually what I predicted they would do which was

Convert Luca Garza to a standard contract um there was no rush to do it which is why they hadn’t done it until now and surely with the uncertainty with the Carlon towns injury and also how well Luca played when Prest into actual rotation Duty you know a week and a half

Ago or so the Wolves were like hey let’s reward him now why wait till the last day of the season and they converted Luca Garza to a standard NBA contract which means two things one there are no more open roster spots and they don’t have to sign anyone else and two

Actually means three things two Garza is now eligible for the postseason to give them some additional depth again and I said this a couple weeks ago if Luca garus played postseason minutes something went terribly wrong and in this case it simply means that you know uh God forbid somebody gets hurt but

That would be how he gets in the game or like really severe foul trouble against an opponent where you need a big lineup Garza could give you some some you know palatable rotation minutes and then the third thing that means is the Wolves will finish the year with an open

Two-way slot of course rookie injured rookie Jaylen Clark has one of them um and desan Nicks has the other those guys are not eligible to play in the playoffs but Garza now is because he’s on a standard contract so um in terms of on the court what he’s provided he hasn’t

Had to play nearly as much I shouldn’t say that it’s close uh he’s played what 21 games this year played 28 games last year the wolves have been healthier until this most recent Carlon tons injury and Garza continues to do Garza stuff right when he’s available or when

He’s presson Duty he plays well he’s he dominated garbage time the other day he’s been good in the g-league once again um you know what he’s going to be asked to do is rebound uh be a body on defense and then knock down shots when he gets the

Opportunity knock down open shots when he gets the opportunity he hasn’t shot it as well in again very limited what like he shot 39 attempts last year from outside the arc for the season was 36% this year he’s nine of 30 which is 30% it’s not like he’s being given a ton of

Opportunity to um to play period but when Preston to duty it’s been roughly the same thing right that’s that’s not that crazy of a variance for um for somebody who isn’t playing very much what he’s done in the g-league he of course was in the g-league All-Star game again this year he’s only

Played uh actually you know what he oh yeah he just played in the Showcase cup earlier this year in the G League he’s barely played in the g- League this season um and in three games of the G League he averaged 37 points and 12 rebounds per

Game remember last year in the G League uh he played what six regular season games average 32 and 12 and in nine showcase Cup games he average 30 and nine and he and he shot the three basically the same there uh although last year in his stretch he maybe shot a

Little bit better but he’s kind of hovered around 35 36% from three for the most part in the G League um he got hot for a stretch last year as well but like if he could be around League average and provide you some rebounding I mean he’s

Not a bad I guess right now he’s a third Center when K comes back he’s your fourth center right um so I get it I get why they did it it makes sense anybody you were going to sign to that last contract you’re hoping they’re not going

To have to help you in the playoffs anyway you can say the same thing about uh like there’s no room in the rotation when I mean TJ Warren’s out of the rotation right now he’s the 10th guy when cat comes back um you know likely it’s mlin that’s out of the rotation

Although with the way he’s playing now who knows right um so it it’s not like they were gonna do anything crazy with it this makes sense to me it also makes sense to send a message to players who could fill two-way slots for them in the

Future that hey if you do your job you work hard and there’s injuries and it makes sense we’re going to promote you and that’s the other piece of that like Tim Connelly’s alluded to this in the past it’s important that the Wolves reward players that play hard and and

Earn an opportunity they did that actually years ago with with nas Reed’s a good example he had such a good summer league he went from a two-way contract to a standard NBA contract as an undrafted guy um and ultimately Jordan mcclaflin was rewarded too and has been

On a standard NBA contract now as an undrafted guy so uh kudos to the Wolves for doing it congrats to Luca for uh for finding his way to a standard NBA deal and now the wolves have no more roster spots the roster set for the playoffs all

Right a little bit of ownership news that came out from a Brian windhorse article at ESPN I want to cruise through that real quick and then we’ll talk a little bit about um about where the wolves are right now the ESPN Power Rankings but also more importantly in

The western cfort standing it’s a big development that happened on uh Thursday night related to one of the other top three teams in the west plus the Wolves net rating and where they now stand after frankly playing very well since City towns got hurt and then I want to

Preview wolf Suns which we haven’t talked about in a long time the wolves have not seen the sun since before Thanksgiving so a lot to get to yet today we’ll get to all of it here next today’s episode of lockdown wolves is sponsored by Robin Hood did you know

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Turn down the volume with all the shouting so instead make this wish to lockdown sports today a free 247 sports streaming Channel programmed for you every day to bring you the best the biggest stories and the best stories without all the screaming lock. sports today brings you can’t miss analysis

Opinions and news streaming 247 on YouTube or the free Amazon Fire TV channels app part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day all right so uh oders ship Saga broke like a week ago and there was a lot of local reporting on it um you know to

Support the national report from Shams you know John krinski got a bit of an exclusive quote uh Darren wolson always gets some quotes for Darren from uh score North and KSTP channel 5 gets some uh access to Glenn Taylor and um you know this thing we’re not going to hear

Anything else concrete until the summer almost certainly and how it should be given where the team is like hey let’s not distract and I I think that Glen Taylor Mark laori and Alex Rodriquez can mostly uh agree on that hopefully at this point obviously um it sounds like

There’s tension between all three of them there were some additional reporting last week that um Lori and Rodriguez themselves had some some contentiousness between them related to how much money a-rod’s actually put up now of course they did the the uh a bunch of media appearances late last week

Together so like clearly they’re going to present to united front but there was some reporting I think it was sportico maybe um there some various reports out there that perhaps Lor’s side was a bit frustrated with Rodriguez’s side although I think we knew all along that was kind of the deal right

Um that uh that Rodriguez still had less cash than Lori Lori uh you know is I mean in bran windhorse article he says Lor’s not a billionaire um but in a and I guess like we’ve seen kind of conflicted reports on that I feel like

His net worth at one point was around a billion so it’s close but like Lori has more money than RZ but neither one of them has as much money as Glen Taylor right and that’s kind of the thing here um so the wior article largely just breaks down the whole thing which we’ve

Done before on the show and likely uh you’re somewhat familiar with but of course the short version is uh that Lauren Rodriquez did not apparently make the last 40% payment by the deadline of in late March like the 27th or 28th and so Glen Taylor executed a clause to

Retain the team and of course laor Rodriquez say that they did everything they were supposed to do according to wior the part that’s new is he just goes into detail about it being a a 50-page document the sales agreement that is which makes sense right it it’s a

Complicated thing this weird like quote unquote installment plan is a very weird way to buy a professional sports team so it’s a 50-page uh document and according to wior uh there were quote numerous protections for Taylor and they believe he’s on firm legal ground because of

This and um Lori and Rodriquez are still saying that they didn’t violate the agreement of course uh you know Glen Taylor Wins legal cases quite a bit and that’s pointed out here by um by windhorse it talks a little bit about one of the other the old limited

Partners Meer Orbach said that he wasn’t given his opportunity to Shell to sell his 17% stake in the team before the completion of the sale to laor Rodriguez but it turns out Clint ‘s agreement protected him and that suit was tossed from federal court

Um and and then also by the way he has a note in here that in the sportical sportico interview that Mark Lori did Mark Lori said he’s never been sued or sued anyone himself which I guess is Good from a business perspective because it’s like okay he’s a good you know his

Word is his bond sort of a thing right like I don’t know that that’s what that tells me and I’m sure that’s what he’s trying to get at but the point Windor is trying to make here is GL Taylor is does the law does the lawsuit stuff well like

Or at least he does it frequently and therefore may have an advantage there he then goes on to talk a little bit about the financial situation which of course we’ll talk more on the show later um and you know I don’t want to get into as much now he finishes with the question

Will the Wolves stay in Minnesota he answers it by saying most likely Taylor has made it clear over and over he will not allow the team to be sold to owners who plan to move he’s turned down numerous offers to sell to buyers who would pay a premium to do so that’s part

Of the reason he sold to lorian Rodriguez who at the $1.5 billion valuation this team’s worth at least twice that now and even then was worth probably over two billion right a couple years ago and the 1.5 billion valuation is a bit of a discount because they

Promised they wouldn’t move the team and that was important to Glen Taylor um so we’ll see he there’s also wior mentions the least to play at Target Center uh for another 11 years through the 20 3435 season um but to break the lease is only

$50 million which is not a whole lot of money when you’re talking about owners and then also there’ have to be a ton of owners that approve relocation the NBA doesn’t want relocation so that that would be my take on this he doesn’t explicitly say that but like they’re

Gonna add a team in Vegas they’re gonna add a team um probably Seattle right there’s going to be two more teams added and relocation isn’t a good look the last time it’s happened was OKC in 2008 Seattle still doesn’t have a team back Seattle’s a a big market Minneapolis is

Actually in terms of NBA Market market like in the upper tier right it’s around the same size Market as Denver it’s not a small market and the NBA doesn’t want to move a team um for for all of the reasons there’s so many reasons so I’m not overly concerned

About that now Glen Taylor um I mean we’ll see I like but I I we’ll see what how it shakes out this summer but I don’t think he’s still I don’t think he’s about to trade trade sell the team to owners that would even consider moving them at all um all right let’s

Shift gears here and get into um the leag the Wolves overall standing in the league right now Minnesota is second to net rating and they’ve they’ve kind of been headed in that direction OKC’s hit a little bit of a rough patch here which was bound to happen eventually

Minnesota’s now second you know Boston’s clearing away the best team in the league they have a net rating at cleaning the glass of 11.7 uh which again cleaning the glass takes out garbage time and heaves at the end of quarters 11.7 which is 3.6 points better than Minnesota which is crazy the

Wolves are second though and they’re a full. n points better than OKC who are a full 1.8 points better than Denver so um the wolves have a gap of almost three points to differential or net rating however you want to is I guess a little different but uh the wolves are second

Denver’s fourth and then there’s New Orleans by the way up to sixth New Orleans just beat the uh the Suns here recently we we’ll talk a little bit about about the Suns here in a moment um but uh the the western conference right now is I mean it’s been a battle all year

But like we’re going back and forth and back and forth with these top three seeds the Wolves of course all three have clitch playoff spots the wolves are now a half game up on Denver plus they have the tiebreaker over Denver so in reality they’re a full game up over

Denver and they’re they are one full game and the standings up on OKC and at the moment they still have the tiebreaker over OKC although that one’s close remember they split the season series the second tiebreakers division record that could still change the wolves are 12 and three in the division

The thunder 12 and4 and I believe I’m going to verify this real quick I believe the Wolves just have that one game against Denver as their only well actually no then the worst that they could do yeah okay that’s right it is so their last division game is against the

The nuggets on a back-to-back but even if the Wolves lose to the Nuggets they would still have a better Conference record than OKC which is the third tie breaker so the Wolves should get the number one seed if every if all three teams are tied my understanding is they

Win all the tie Breakers so they have a half game lead plus the tiebreaker over Denver a full game lead plus the tiebreaker over OKC so they’re in pretty good shape they’ve also got a better Point differential and net rating than both of those teams um and and and by

The way that the Western Conference development from Thursday I mentioned earlier was that the Nuggets lost to the Clippers on Thursday night and um that that’s huge right La is pretty well I don’t say cemented but they’re going to likely be in the four seed they’ve got a

Two- game lead on Denver for the four seed but they’re four back of OKC so they’re not catching OKC at this point um but the Clippers aren’t going anywhere the Clippers and Suns kind of hovering in the middle of the western conference is scary the Pelicans scare

Me even more they’re actually tied with the Suns right now for sixth so we’ll talk a little bit more about that and what the Suns have been up to lately here in a minute um I also wanted to mention the NBA Power Rankings over ESPN um ESPN still has Denver second in

Their rankings because of course they do and they’ve got OKC third the wolves are fourth um and it’s fair to to like also factor in the Carlon towns injury right now they’ve been nine and four since cat went out which is a little better or a little slightly worse in their Overall

Winning percentage for the season but the defense has been awesome and ant’s been good and Nas has stepped up huge when he’s gotten into the starting lineup recently so um you know I I get why they’re fourth in these power rankings but right now it it’d be hard

To argue the Wolves aren’t the second best team in the league and and I would consider what they’ve done without Carlon towns is even a greater reason for them to be a little bit higher even if their ceiling may be lower when um when carony towns is not on the floor

Which is certainly the case all right uh let’s close here by looking at the matchup against the Suns as I mentioned earlier Minnesota has not seen Phoenix since November 15th that is nearly four months ago which is crazy and now they play them twice in the last what eight

Games of the season so we’ll talk all about that matchup here next and why I really don’t like the matchup for Minnesota we’ll cover that here at the close of the show today’s episode of lockdown wolves is sponsored by our friends at Amazon Fire TV I’ve got a couple Amazon Fire

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A minute since we’ve seen the Phoenix Suns remember way back to November this was the Wolves were on a road trip I think they played the Clippers first actually hang on I’ve got it here I think the Wolves played the Clippers first this was a second night of a back

Toback Phoenix that had hadn’t played in three days and this was a um basically a schedule loss for Minnesota at the time and and I said it at the time oh they were in Golden State it was coming off those consecutive wins in Golden State so remember the Wolf start of the year

One and two that they beat Denver which kicks off a seven game winning streak including two games in Golden State one of those being the goar Draymond Green game so they Eight and2 coming off of these emotional wins consecutive wins at the Warriors which at the time you know

Seemed even more impressive because you know golden state is Golden State um and they had the overtime win against Boston mixed in there and everything and then on the second end of a back toback they go to Phoenix and get absolutely dominated by Phoenix who’s well rested the wolves are on the road

On a back toback Etc and it was ugly it was and it wasn’t a close game at any point Phoenix was up six at the end of the first quarter I think this was a national TV game too and then Phoenix outscored Minnesota 41 to 25 in the

Second quarter this was a regular like no overtime needed right this was a blowout Phoenix hung 133 points on the wolves and I should have actually looked this up earlier but I bet that’s the most points they’ve given up in a game all season long I’m going to Quick

Scroll through the the wolf schedule game log right here uh9 in an overtime loss to Chicago uh yeah they they have not given up anywhere near that amount of points this year I mean 127 and a loss to overtime loss to Boston they haven’t given up I they gave

Up 12 to to OKC in that game the day after Christmas that’s the closest so uh 129 to OKC this was the most points they’ve given up all season 133 to Phoenix back on November 15th and 41 points in the second quarter in that game um they did not have uh they did

Not have Bradley Beal he was still out and this was the first game Devon Booker had played after returning from I forget what injury it was at the time but Devon Booker played and tied with Durant to lead the team with 31 points he had 31

And 22 shots Durant was awesome he had 31 on just 15 shots had six rebounds and six assists and of course has also been just really good overall this year Bradley Beals been their leading scorer for the most part um and I should say for the most part I’m pretty sure he

Just straight up leads them in scoring but he he tends to be their their nightly leader in scoring um it’s close though for the season Booker’s 27.6 per game Durant’s 27.5 of course Durant is a little bit more efficient Booker has those big volume nights where he just gets hot and goes crazy

But Durant remains um you know remains an ultra efficient offensive player and you know Bradley Beal for the most part has been you know what the Suns need him to be which is essentially a third score he is shooting a shade under 39% from three he’s not nearly as

Efficient as the other two overall um but but like and I mean by what by that I mean he doesn’t shoot the three as well as Durant he doesn’t get to the line as often as either one of them and that’s kind of the separator for Booker

In terms of offensively and how he averages more than 10 points more per game uh but anyway back to the first match up between the two teams it was really dured Booker going off and the Wolves just like Anthony Edwards had an off night he shot four of 16 from the

Field cat was fine he had 25 and seven in this game but nobody else came to play goar had just four points in 25 minutes I mean the Wolves kind of mailed it in you know they were down they were down what 24 at halftime and they were

Down down 30 going to the fourth quarter so it was a lot of garbage time there was a lot of shake Milton who by the way probably one of the better games he scored in wolves uniform eight points uh and four rebounds in this game a lot of

Shake built late a lot of slow-mo in the second half you know a lot of Nas who is kind of not in the fringes of the rotation but played a little bit less at the time um so this was this was a um a schedule loss but at

The same time I don’t love the matchup for Minnesota period And I said that at the time I say it now I said it last year when the Wolves struggled with Phoenix the biggest problem is that Minnesota for the most part defensively is happy to give up mid-range jumpers

And against probably maybe not 29 teams but greater than 25 teams in the league that’s a great strategy like please do that make them shoot mid-range jumpers all day but for Phoenix that’s what they want to do anyway and they’re really good at it like really really good at it

So they’re number one in the league in um or they’re number two in the league in all mid-range shots behind only Miami but they’re number one in Long mid-range shots Miami shoots a ton of short mid-range so defined by cleaning the glass that’s between four and 14 feet uh

Phoenix shoots more shots from between 14 feet and the three-point line than any other team in the league almost 133% of their shots come from the long mid-range so overall mid-range shots which is between four uh which it’s all two-pointers that aren’t at The Rim okay so anywhere from four feet so outside

The the restricted area all the way out to uh the three-point line they’re number one in the number two in the league in nonrestricted area twoo attempts 35% of their shots come from the non non Rim two-point category which is crazy okay that’s the frequency you want to talk about the

Accuracy they’re also number two in the league they’re number two in Long mid-range jumpers they shoot them at 48.1% and that’s what the Wolves defense is generally designed to do now they’ve been more flexible with their defense as the season has gone on and they did the

Same thing the last two years under Chris Finch which was you know you have a base defense so it used to be um an aggressive blitzing blitzing the pick and roll defense on the perimeter a couple years ago and then with Rudy Go Barrett transitioned into more of a drop

Defense but lately they’ve been doing a little more switching mixing in some Zone here and there um they’ve just been a little bit they’ve been open to doing more things they’ve even done some blitzing when with goar they do it with goar but they do it more when carony

Towns was on the floor and goar was off the floor they’ll Blitz on the perimeter sometimes so it’s it’s a defense that has a variety of things they can go to but their preferred defense is still having go bar and drop and you can’t really do that against Bradley Beal

Kevin Durant and Devin Booker because they want to shoot long mid-range jumpers and they’re really really freaking good at it Phoenix shoots 48% on Long mid-range jumpers which if you’re going to shoot that well it’s not a terrible shot League average is about 42% from long mid-range the Wolves for

Context who don’t shoot a lot of long mid-range are only 30 8% which is below League average from long mid-range jumpers uh and again those three that I mentioned the three star guards for them are the guys who who are you know not only happy to shoot them but prolific at

Shooting them um jumping over to basketball reference they sorted a little bit differently including the glass but Kevin Durant on 16f footer 16 plus foot two-point shots so greater than 16 fet but within the arc 54% that’s crazy Booker’s 48% Bradley Bill is a shade over 40% um but Bradley

Bill also shoots them less frequently both Booker and Durant around 16% of their shots are those long twos Durant 28% of his shots are between 10 and 16 feet um Booker doesn’t shoot the ball well actually no he’s still 23% of his shots for there Beal is obviously more

Three-point heavy um that’s more of his game but um when Durant or Bookers operate in the middle of the floor they’re more than happy to to pull up from anywhere in the mid-range and shoot the wolves are going to have to do some different stuff defensively like

Obviously it’s going to be a lot of Jade McDaniels it’s going to be a lot of Niki Alexander Walker but don’t be surprised if the Wolves try some different things defensively um you know like a Zone’s not going to be effective against a team like the Suns right because there’s gaps

In the middle of the zone and you’re going to give up probably more threes and the Suns aren’t a bad three-point shooting team either in terms of frequency they’re kind of middle of the pack they’re what um 21st and three-point rate and fifth in percentage so they shoot a little bit

Worse and a little bit less frequently than the wolves from 3 but it’s similar so you’re not going to play the Z Play Zone against Phoenix I’ll be curious to see what finch does I think it’ll be you know their traditional drop but they’ll mix in some switching and stuff

Depending on the situation um and and that’s probably the right thing to do against a team like this who doesn’t like also by the way getting back to shot frequency shot type frequency talk about getting to the rim Phoenix doesn’t do that very often right because those

Guys are um at least in the case of Durant I mean they’re they’re getting older right they don’t necessarily want or need to get all the way to the rim there isn’t a whole lot of big man depth for Phoenix either so uh for the wolves

Like hey you know I mean like you’re not really worried about like Yousef nurkic is good and has always played well against the Wolves but you’re not super worried about nurkic going off in the paint I mean against the they had a 21-point win over Cleveland last time

Out on uh Wednesday night and nurkic had two points he also had 10 rebounds but he had two points on 0 of four against uh Jared Allen and and Evan Mobley and a really good interior defense Cleveland and again Phoenix won the game by 20 plus because devid Booker had 40 and

Kevin Durant had 32 but you’re not super concerned about nurkic and literally nobody else like the only other rotation big is what Drew Eubanks um like there’s nobody else that’s a true rotation big for Phoenix they have Royce O’Neal effectively playing the four and he’s a

Good player and fits well for that team but there just isn’t big man depth and and by the way speaking of depth there’s no depth to this Phoenix team remember Josh Ki was starting earlier this year he’s out of the rotation it’s basically Eric Gordon is kind of their bench punch

That that they you know the guy that gives them punch Off the Bench bub is a rotation guy for them now he had a big game against Cleveland but um you’re not expect he had 15 points in 22 minutes in that game but that’s not something

You’re expecting to get out of bull bowl with frequency um Grayson Allen’s a good player he didn’t play against Cleveland but he’s probable against the Wolves so uh you know it’s not a super deep team it’s not a consistent team they’ve had a couple of long winning streaks but

Beyond that uh Phoenix has been you know win two lose one win three lose two uh win two lose like that’s just kind of what they’ve been doing for most of the season they had a long winning streak back actually started when they beat the wolves in November and then another

Seven game winning streak in January since then they haven’t won more than three games in a row and they’ve only done that twice so they’re up and down quite a bit we talked about the standings they’re currently tied for the six seed so I mean they’re trying to

Stay out of the play in they’re trying to stay out of the play in and they just saw New Orleans before Cleveland beat New Orleans by 13 which helps them um look at their tiebreaker real quick with New Orleans and see who who wins that uh

They still got a game to play but the Suns have already won two so Phoenix does have the tiebreaker over New Orleans so if they finish with the same record New Orleans is in the play in for the for the record I think I’d still rather the Wolves play the Suns than the

Pelicans I know Kevin Durant I know the midr jumper thing but the Pelicans are scary to me and the Wolves dominated the Pelicans say Zion earlier but if Zion’s on the floor that’s a scary match up uh for for in my mind for the Wolves so

Anyway I don’t like that either of those matchups the Suns or the Pelicans and right now it’s not unlikely the Wolves wouldn’t face one of those teams in the first round of the playoffs anyway wolves Suns match up Phoenix by the way is favored by four and a half points on

FanDuel and and certainly with no car towns and on the road I guess I get that um it just still seemed a little bit High I thought it would be more like two points I think it opened at two and a half and it moved toward Phoenix um and

And I don’t know that we could really pull a whole lot from that game you know way back in uh in November all right that’s all we have for you today here on the show enjoy wolf Suns tonight of course if you can’t watch listen on the

Serus XM sxm app to alen Horton calling wolves Suns and then tune in to the postcast of the lockdown Sports Minnesota YouTube channel after the game if you can’t watch it live you can also watch it after the fact or listed here on this audio feed later on Friday or

Over your weekend of course we’ll have a show on on Monday the postgame pod there’ll also be a postcast after the Wolves game on Sunday against uh let’s see who do they have Sunday uh that’s at the Lakers on Sunday night so we’ll have a um a postgame pod for

Monday we’ll also have the live postcast following that game too all right that’s all we have for you today here on the show big thank you for making lock on wolves your first listen every day of course this show is free and available wherever you listen to podcasts you can

Also watch on YouTube or on the lockdown Sports Minnesota app on Roku or Amazon Fire TV and you can follow on X at lockdown te wolves and also at B Beacon with two B’s Two e cken of course the locked on wolves are part of the locked

On lockdown wolves podcast is part of the lockdown podcast Network remember the lockdown network is your local experts and all the biggest stories once again I’m bed Beacon this is the lockd Wolves podcast and we’ll catch you next time

The Minnesota Timberwolves filled their final roster spot by promoting two-way player Luka Garza to a standard NBA contract, plus the Wolves take on the Phoenix Suns for the first time in nearly four months. Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) breaks down why the Wolves signed Garza and what that means for the roster heading into the playoffs. Plus, the Wolves are now second in the NBA in net rating, and there’s a bit more ownership news coming out of an ESPN report. Finally, a preview of the difficult matchup against the Suns.

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