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Locked On Wolves POSTCAST: Minnesota Timberwolves ESCAPE After Controversial Lebron James Shot



Locked On Wolves POSTCAST: Minnesota Timberwolves ESCAPE After Controversial Lebron James Shot

Hello and welcome in to locked on wolves on the postcast we are live following a tumultuous T Wolves win over the LA Lakers I’m with Tyler metf of K suus we’re going to break the whole thing down next welcome in you are locked on wolves you are locked on wolves postcast

Part of locked on Sports Minnesota 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 the lockd down wolves podcast and I’m here with Tyler Mecha from K suus we’re going to break down wolves Lakers this is the

Live postcast immediately following the Wolves win over the Lakers on Saturday night and uh Tyler this was a weird game to say the least it had a little bit of everything um at various moments throughout I felt like this was a a wellplayed game from two Western Conference contenders you know teams

That are going to be at least in the second round if not the Conference Finals and then other moments it was like devolved and was really sloppy and there were tons of reviews and Technical files and flagrance and and you know uh just it was just kind of messy um

There’s a ton of places we could start I guess off the top here what are your initial takeaways initial off-the-top thoughts from this one I it I know the game was a a one bucket game but it kind of felt like the Wolves almost played a

Perfect game at least when you look at the numbers where I mean the Lakers had a 46.6 effective field goal rate that is awful their off offensive rating was 108 uh free throw rates are about the same so yeah there’s some issues with the refs and whatnot but both teams were

Attacking the rim there was a lot of physicality going on wolves got their fair share of calls but then you look at the turnovers and yet again we’ve been talk I sound like a broken record on this for the past however many weeks now but turnover rate for the Lakers was

Just 10.3 Minnesota 18.8 nine more turnovers than the Lakers they got 19 points off of turnovers you know that allows them to get out in transition get get a bunch of easy buckets we saw how awful their offense looks in the half court and how easily the Wolves were

Able to deal with them but Anthony Davis was huge in the first quarter uh the their transition offense and those turnovers kind of kept them afloat late and then the game just ended up being a little closer than it really needed to be Yeah you mentioned uh I guess we

Could start let’s start with the beginning of the game real quick and we’ll obviously spend time on the end of the game but the turnover battle and the um well not even really a battle the Wolves turned it over nine more times in the Lakers the turnover category I guess

And then the start for Anthony Davis are what put the Wolves kind of behind the eightball and we’re used to the Wolves to this wolves team starting slowly in games and we’ve seen you know first half they’re roughly League average I believe net rating wise in third quarter they’re

Second best in the league I think fourth quarter they third or fourth best so it it has been slow starts but in this game it was it was as you mentioned really sloppy with the ball and then also Anthony Davis Kind of having his way with the Wolves defense the Lakers had a

Huge advantage in terms of paint points early in the game The Wolves caught up as the game went on uh because uh really because of ants and then also Rudy um but early in the game it was again sloppiness it was turnovers it was kind of carrying that theme forward from the

OKC game on Tuesday and the Dallas game on Thursday and uh that was what really I mean the Lakers had an 11-point lead and um it was largely due like I mean you mentioned the Wolves playing a nearly perfect game and it’s true like if you look and I talked with this after

The Mavericks game on Thursday like the Wolves shot 40 like 45% from three on Thursday 51% from the field got to the line a bunch same thing in this game 50% from the field you know about 35% from three but they got to the line 24 times

So if you if you take half of those possessions where they turn it over and you say they you know score a point per possession on those turnovers or something reasonable like that like this turns into a multiple possession win for Minnesota I know it’s not that easy but

I mean like that’s one way to look at it and that’s some of these are just there there’s simply throwing the ball away like they aren’t competitive turnovers in a lot of cases and that’s what kills Chris Fitch yeah and just to kind of touch on Anthony Davis real quick I mean

I think he had 17 in the first quarter and it was like eight of nine um all of that at The Rim but then you just look at the overall kind of shooting accuracy for the Lakers by the end of the game they only shot 52.9% at The Rim compared

To the timber wolves who are at 76.9% that’s an absurd differential and you know mid-range Lakers were at 40% Timberwolves were at 37.5% from three-point range Lakers were at 30.4% Timberwolves were at 35.3% none of these metrics suggest that that this game should have been anywhere

As close as it should have but then we go back to the turnovers and they’re not yes the Lakers play really good defense they have a lot of good good Defenders they have a ton of size they really disrupt um what their opponents are allowed to do and we kind of saw that

From the start with uh Vanderbilt on Conley and that just kind of limited how quickly and effectively the Timol were able to get into their offense but it’s these lazy Outlet passes where we we saw Rudy strip Anthony Davis in the post and then just kind of throw it ahead without

Even looking at who’s there and LeBron just effortlessly walks in front of it and I think he gets a layup off of it it’s that kind of stuff where it happens four or five times a game and it’s just gifting the other team points when they’ve already done the work to end the

Possession they’ve done the hard stuff and then they’re just failing to execute on the easy stuff that they should be rewarding themselves on that’s the exact thing we’re working with our tenu basketball team own I was watching the game with my son and he literally said

He goes it after that turnover he goes is that what you’re talking about when you talk about the bigs the fours and the fives having to look for a guard after rebound I said yeah exactly that that’s exactly what we’re trying to teach you guys right now and that’s the

Problem one of the one of the weird problems that the wolves are having right now um all right so we talked about the start to the game The Wolves were down um you know down 11 at one point in the first quarter and things really could have spiraled but the bench

Played really well for Minnesota especially early in this game it was obviously a huge NS read game we really can’t go any further without talking about him but in that first stint nil Alexander Walker was awesome he hit he hadit a three at a key point in the game

When the Wolves were down by a few possessions uh strong defense early I thought he had a tough whistle in this game on the defensive end of the floor pretty much the bench for the Wolves outplaying the Lakers bench and and really a fully stocked Lakers team at

Least to start the game uh obviously DLo Austin Reeves both coming off the bench Anthony Davis and LeBron both playing like this was a a full strength Lakers team and the Wolves their depth really showed out early in this one and it was the Wolves bench outperforming the

Lakers bench that gave that allowed Minnesota to not just hang around but also you know take a lead at some point in the second quarter yeah and the the second quarter got off to a real ugly start offensively at least where I I think the first handful of possessions were airball

Turnover turnover turnover Miss three Miss layup and then a turnover which was an offensive foul um and then they you know just took a deep breath and kind of started to to figure their stuff out um but like you said nazri stepping up in a big way again and it’s big theme this

Year where every time the cat has struggled or gotten in foul trouble or been hurt Nas is stepping up every single time so I I know that one of the uh big talking points with this team going forward is the cap sheet and paying three centers all of this money

And that you know one of cat or Nas is going to have to get moved eventually and maybe that comes to fruition but right now is so essential to this team because these are the types of games where he can step up and if they don’t

Have nased on this team they lose this game tonight where and he finished with 21 points tonight five rebounds one assist two steals two blocks uh three or four um from the line two of five from three eight of 11 from the floor that’s incredibly efficient scoring and he was

Doing it at the rim and from three uh something I thought was really fascinating was how aggressively the Lakers were kind of protecting the ram and having their weak side Defenders just basically in the lane to take away any lobs to go bear or deter drives and

Just kind of leaving guys wide open in the corner that works with Kyle Anderson that doesn’t work with nas Reed and he showed them real quickly that he’s going to punish them if they don’t close out on him but then he also showed them that he’s more than capable of attacking

Those Closeouts and finishing at the rim with either hand so that decisive uh decision Mak um just split second really leas driving attacking the ball never sticks with him absolutely crucial to to tonight’s win yeah I think it’ll be interesting to see how Chris Finch manages those backup big minutes moving

Forward uh we’ve seen you know Troy Brown Jr get a little bit of run mostly at the three I think lately here uh but kind of as that ninth guy but with slowmo shooting issues that are well documented which is by the way crazy because even though everybody knows he

Shot 41% last year but it was strictly from the corners but that’s literally all they need him to do if he could only shoot you know one one and a half threes a game because last year the threat of him making that three at at a you know

League average clip from the corners was uh enough to be effective enough to leave him on the floor and now Chris Finch has to kind of you know push and pull like what’s the Right Mix here of who’s on the floor who are what’s my mix of bigs depending on the opponent how

They’re defending but you’re right I mean the the nas can both shoot the ball better than KY erson obviously and also attack off the dribble with more um explosion and is far more dangerous yes slimo is a better passer and you know he’s on the floor primarily to playmake

Anyway when he’s out there um but it it is really interesting to see and and you know Dallas found out the hard way a couple times already with nas Reed with you know leaving him and I think we saw them change it a little a little bit the

Last time they faced the Wolves instead of just like daring Nas to beat them it was like okay we actually have to factor for this you know Factor this guy into our defensive gameplay and then you know 21 points at 11 shots Off the Bench is a

Fantastic night for Nas Reed um the uh we talked about Davis already in the first quarter and the defense not being great in the third quarter things were really kind of it was It was kind of stop and start a lot of reviews game was close and then we get into the fourth

Quarter we will talk about the final minute you know or or uh I guess final couple of minutes but Anthony Edwards kind of had this burst in there that it seemed like the Wolves were get gonna get separation and I guess they did I mean they were up a couple of

Possessions with a couple of minutes to play but Anthony Edwards had this like um this it was almost like what what was it like first quarter third quarter of the Mavs game when he was Unstoppable and then he had a couple of moments where it was it was maybe less less

Great for ant it was kind of the same thing in this game where all of a sudden he just went nuts and he hit that crazy crossover shot from the right side of the floor where he he uh got Anthony Davis on the on the step back from like

18 feet or something yeah and then he came down hit the three um had a had a big layup mixed in there to in transition just was gave this this absolute burst on a night when nobody else other than NZ really brought it offensively in fact an attempted 23

Shots in this game nobody else on the Wolves shot the ball more than 11 times ant had 31 on 23 shots and uh only had three assists and three turnovers in this game this was just another high volume ant game but I thought at that point in the game with nobody else

Coming to the party offensively except for Nas um and with the way the Lakers were trying to defend the paint and trying to load up on ant ant for the most part I thought made some good decisions there were a couple possessions where you’d like to see him

Kick it to a shooter but for the most part I thought he attacked when he needed to and did what he needed to do to get the Wolves a win in this one yeah yeah I I tend to agree I think in the kind of second in third quarter

The ball started sticking with him a little more where he would go I so heavy and just kind of over dribble for 10 15 seconds at a time and then once he didn’t see anything he liked then he would kick it out and it’s like okay

That’s not how you really run a free flowing offense but when you have an isolation scorer like him who can get who is now consistently getting to 30 with ease in a whole bunch of different ways in all three levels of the Court you kind of live with it especially when

As we’re seeing game by game now his decision- making in these final five minutes or so has been really good where he is moving the ball a little more he is reading the weak side on his drives where if the entire defense collapses he’s more than happy to kick out to Mike

Conley in the corner and we saw that again tonight so there were a couple kind of herob ball moments that he could have tried to capitalize on a little more but the unselfishness I think is still there enough late in games where you can live with some of the kind of

Stickiness in the second and third quarters um again I think the big thing with him you mentioned 31 points 23 shots on the face really efficient but then you know only 43.5% from the floor overall that’s rough that’s where we go back to the free throw column 11 free

Throw attempts uh he had 18 against Dallas uh I think 13 the night before or the game before that against the Thunder this is a really awesome Trend that is that hopefully continues where he’s getting a little more respect it feels like that the Hayes are a little less

Aggressive coming from him um and and a little more measured and picking his spots a little better with those but that aggressiveness the explosiveness the reputation that he’s starting to build and getting to the line if he can maintain that sevenish if not more a game that’s going

To be absolutely huge for his scoring and just the overall offense of the team let’s talk about our title sponsors over at prize picks prize picks is the largest daily fantasy sports platform in North America we’re the easiest and most they are the easiest and most exciting

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Um excuse me uh so at the end of the game the Timberwolves were up by seven and the Lakers I mean like I’m skipping ahead there was a crazy back and forth I don’t want to go blowby blow because you’re watching this listening to this you probably watched the game you don’t

Need us to rehash it all but there was the crazy back and forth uh we know three-pointers getting traded and now it’s a seven-point game and LeBron hits a tough shot gets foued by jadeen McDaniels and it was you know letter of the law technically a foul you know

Whatever it was it was close it was jadeen McDaniel’s six foul the more important that that was piece one was that it well actually there’s like three things you can’t do right you can’t allow a a a three-point play you can’t foul when they’re making a shot you

Can’t allow a four-point play which means don’t foul in a three-pointer or don’t get a technical foul MC Daniel did all the things you can’t do he fouled him allowed him to make the shot and got a technical foul it ends up being a four-point possession for the Lakers the

Lakers come or the wolves come down don’t score on their end have a bit of a disjointed possession themselves and then in transition the Wolves got you know all it looked like they were going to get get an offensive rebound and and for whatever reason a couple guys on the

Perimeter including Conley kind of lingered instead of just getting back when you’re up three um and you know Conley got back in time to kind of do a flyby contest on LeBron LeBron shoots the three they rule it a two on the floor review it seem inconclusive it was

One of those where when he starts the shot the toes behind the line but as he tips forward to jump it looks like it touches the line classic like NFL review they stick with the call on the floor that’s pretty much what happened there and it’s ruled a a two-point shot and of

Course then there’s still you know we could talk the last position too ant misses a free throw so the Lakers actually still had another shot to tie it or take the lead um but I don’t know thoughts on that final like I I feel like we got to talk about it I don’t

Really know what my take is there other than it was just kind of crazy like a really a really weird last 30 seconds and obvously the I guess the immaturity the continue continued maturity issues I guess of Jade McDaniels yeah and I I thought it was a

Tough call I it felt like Jaden was trying to be so intentional about showing my hands are up they’re out I’m not swiping down I’m not folling I’m not doing this and then you know LeBron initiates the contact and goes into him and he gets the call um you know shout

Out Tony Brothers he was feeling himself tonight he was on one but when you’re Jaden I get the frustration because so many of his fouls tonight were kind of like that and he had there was a lot of ticky Tac stuff um especially with LeBron where it’s like is that really a

Foul is that really a foul and then you know you go you go to the bench and you’re looking at the stats and all of that and you see that the Lakers have 15 fouls on them compared to 26 on you and a lot of that is based on how the Lakers

Defend and attack the rim so I’m not saying it’s all conspiracy theory or anything like that but it’s frustrating as a player and when you’re Jade a guy like Jaden who has to take on the toughest defensive assignment every single night and you constantly get calls like that um that then allow the

Kind of the opponent back in the game it’s really frustrating what he has to do there is just put his head down he’s not changing the call and get the heck to the bench because that was a rare and it didn’t even seem like he there’s that

Much of an emotional Outburst so he must have said something uh not familyfriendly there that because we never see that from jayen we rarely see jayen get teed up and when he does he is really pissed um so it’s just something you can’t do I I I don’t I I know that’s

Not enlightening or you know way out there or revolutionary but you just you just can’t do it especially in that spot yeah and and obviously like McDaniels you mentioned the the fall issues he’s had and for the most part I thought um you know he had been improving over the last couple years

You know marginally in terms of the overall issues of fing but um it is interesting because he is getting clearly as a reputation now as a good Defender and a lot of times guys that are really good Defenders will tend to get a little bit of the benefit of the

Doubt just like stars get calls on the on you know on the offensive side of the ball but we’re not seeing that really for McDaniels yet and maybe that follows at some point you know if the Wolves continue you know it seems silly but if they continue to be number one in the

West and they continue to beat good teams then maybe he gets a little bit more respect but obviously uh you know reacting apparently the way that he did probably isn’t going to help um so anyway all right let’s uh let’s talk a little bit about about uh Carlon towns I

Have a couple uh couple things I’m G to ask your thoughts on so cat obviously another rough game this is game three coming back from the the knee issue he missed just the one game against Sacramento he only had he had what nine points nine rebounds in this game he had

Five turnovers five personal fouls and uh I I generally don’t like to site individual games single individual players single game plus minus this is a two-point game and he was at minus 23 uh that’s that’s notable right um so I you know I it’s so hard to know like how

Injured is he how much of this is I mean he only missed one game so it’s not rust how much of it is he’s not all all the way right but it’s not just that it’s it’s I mean if for people that have watched C for his entire career or even

Just the last couple of Seasons no cat when he has the Stray voltage version of cat and and that’s what this feels like where he’s flailing his arms dramatically after not getting a call um falling down a little bit more often reacting demonstrably and and and he had

Done a good job last year you know before and after the injury I think doing a little bit better with that he had moments early this season where it was an issue but was so mature the last several weeks and now it feels like it’s

Back and to me it seems like he’s not quite right and maybe this is just he’s compensated and he’s looking for calls to try and get himself right I don’t know I mean I’m just I’m because from a decision making standpoint other than the cly offensive fouls that have

Cropped back up I don’t know that he’s making the wrong decisions he made a couple nice passes tonight he did it on thurs against Dallas um you know defensively he maybe is a little slow rotation rotationally but uh what are you seeing from cat overall here the

Past three games and I guess more specifically tonight yeah and it kind of looks like what we saw from him the first handful of games to start the season where he kind of came out sluggish it’s like oh God this fit just looks clunky again this doesn’t look

Like it’s going to work and then after five or so games he was playing like an all NBA level where he was 50490 playing the best defense of his career and was really good for a couple months um so my my hope is that this is just him still

Kind of recovering from that injury maybe he’s not fully 100% uh maybe that time that you know that short time off was and you know comp compiled with the holiday season maybe I don’t know is just kind of like putting him in a bit of a funk that hopefully he breaks out

Of here sooner rather than later but it really feels like what we saw from the start of the season um and he was playing so well before that that little injury that kind of knocked him out for a game um that I kind of want to give

Him the benefit of the doubt tonight but like you said I mean single game plus minus it’s far from perfect but when you’re minus 23 and the next lowest person is a minus8 it’s notable it’s really notable it’s not a stat that you should live and die by but when there’s

That much of an outlier it’s it’s really really glaring so another night with five turnovers he keeps doing the ri or the hook on the drives um and that just feels like a habit that he’s never going to break out of which is horribly frustrating because

The game plan and the the book is out on him now and every single ref is looking for it when he drives now but he was doing that thing where he flails and falls to the ground and doesn’t get back in transition again too which you know

Gives the opponent five on four at minimum every single time down in transition so when you do that a handful of times you turn it over five times you’re three of seven from the floor you have five fouls it just all compiles into another really rough showing so

He’s better than this he’s shown that he’s better than this for the previous two months where he was playing some of the best basketball of his career I’m willing to you know give it another couple games before we you know really start hitting the panic button but it’s

A it’s a slump that he definitely needs to kind of work himself out of let’s talk about our friends over at fuel as the weather continues to get colder as we’re officially now into winter the NFL offers stay hot on FanDuel right now new customers can get $150 in bonus Bets

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Um let’s talk a little bit about this is you know I guess we’re winding towards the beginning of the game something that the Lakers did getting a little bit more in the weeds here defensively is they decided to Hound the ball with Jared Vanderbilt and that’s something the

Wolves obviously did some stuff they played around with Vando um you know two years ago just doing different things with him blitzing pick and rolls trying to be aggressive on ball handlers trying to um just use his aggression and and also the fact that he’s under sized but

Also long and athletic like just see what you can do with Vando he’s not like the point of attack Defender that Jaden McDaniels is he doesn’t move quite as quick quickly left but Conley is maybe the perfect guard that you could try and bother with Vando because he’s not probably going to beat

You off the dribble like a quicker younger guard might but you also can try and speed up the Wolves offense and get the ball out of his hands and then try and make somebody else create and and that’s clearly what Darin ham and the Lakers were trying to do so they put

Jared Vanderbilt on Conley to start the game it seemed to throw the Wolves a little bit out of whack and I thought it was partly how the Lakers built that double digit lead uh what was your take on that and I guess also how the Wolves

Responded to that early in the game yeah and I definitely think it’s a a something to keep an eye on going forward um and it it definitely worked I’m assuming how the Lakers hoped that it would um because I when you have a guy as big and athletic and as energetic

As Jared Vanderbilt picking you up full court every single possession after every single make that’s exhausting and when you’re Mike Conley’s age you don’t want to deal with that every single possession so you know that’s where the kind of creation abilities of a Kyle Anderson and Anthony Edwards Nel

Alexander Walker that’s where they become so important because they have to kind of be a little more aggressive about going and getting the ball from Mike and at least taking it across half court and then you know running a little handoff action or something with him uh

To then get into the offensive flow but they were kind of slow to adjust to that where there were a lot of times where an inbound would take three or four seconds to get in while someone finally realized that oh I have to go back and help because Jared Vanderbilt is playing ball

Denial and we haven’t seen that since College um so it’s something that I think could probably cause some issues uh in the playoffs where you know scouting reports get so much more detailed and consistent um and creative I’m not sure we’ll see it a ton on a regular basis throughout the regular

Season maybe maybe with some teams like OKC um or Denver who have some really long and athletic uh point of attack Defenders but I think that something definitely uh come playoff time where the wolves have to be a little more comfortable with a bunch of other guys kind of initiating the

Offense um what are your thoughts on a comment here from from Zack talking about how Chris Finch has been ticked off in his postgame the last couple games even though that the wolves have won um so I I guess going back to the turnover issues I I haven’t seen the

Postgame comments yet from today but clearly that was his Focus I think he said his quote was his time to grow up offensively he mentioned after the Mavs game on Thursday is this now like the wolves are clearly a contender they’re a title Contender at this point I think

It’s pretty obvious um and now Chris Finch is is this are we going to see a different version of Chris Finch now like how is this going to be all talk where he’s just kind of like hey we need to get better but nothing actually

Changes or are we going to see him be a little bit more Hands-On a little bit less player-driven free flowing offense I shouldn’t say that I I highly doubt the offense is changing but maybe is there a little bit more structure are we going to see the Wolves follow through

At any point I guess I’m asking you to kind of predict what this looks like over the next few weeks obviously the schedule’s still really tough the next couple of weeks but um are we seeing this kind of turn from Chris Finch like all right we’re there now like now is

The time we can’t afford to let this opportunity slip away by being so immature and making the mistakes we’ve been making um you know what what what’s your take on this I guess new version this new ticked off version of Chris Finch I I I love it it sets expectations

It sets the culture it’s you know yeah we won that’s because we’re really talented we’re a really good team but we didn’t play anywhere near our best game and I think so much of that goes back to the turnovers and the decision making that we continuously see from half of

The roster right now and it’s just not good enough it’s good enough to scrape by in some of these wins in December but it’s not going to be good enough to hang on to the one seed it’s not going to be good enough to win multiple playoff

Series if habits don’t change and the fact that he’s holding people accountable I’m assuming based on his pressors he does he feels like the coach where if he’s saying it publicly he’s preaching it privately too and going over it in shootarounds and film and the

Huddles and all that kind of stuff so I I think it’s I I don’t think it’s for show I think it’s the real deal um some ways to combat some of those turnovers are kind of like you mentioned a little more structure but that was kind of the

Talk coming into the season and we haven’t seen a ton of that consistently so I don’t know how much goes into it maybe it’s just limiting playing time sometimes and keeping shorter leashes where if cat starts throwing it all over the place and racks up three turnovers

In a handful of minutes he’s getting he’s getting an early sub um maybe same thing with Anthony Edwards where you know couple turnovers here here or there a couple missed rotations on defense and things start getting sloppy and lazy you get subbed out a little earlier and he’s

Willing to kind of sacrifice some of those minutes here in the middle of the season to make sure that the message is sent and these guys are ready come playoff time yeah it was interesting I mean towns was on the floor to at least to start the close of the game in crunch

Time there despite having a really uneven game once again it felt like it should have been a Nas closing game but town was still on the floor did have a couple big rebounds in there and I thought was okay in the final couple possessions but yeah I thought that’ll

Be certainly something interesting to keep an eye on here moving forward because for the most part he’s been kind of like hey our starters closed the game like most coaches are but um anyway uh any other final thoughts on this one Tyler anything in your notes we didn’t

Get to uh from from wolves Lakers um just it was a good win it was a good win um it wasn’t as you know ugly grinded out as some of the recent ones have been uh Lakers are a really good team uh they’re a team that the Wolves could

Easily see in the playoffs and it’s going to be fascinating to see how they look a post trade deadline because I have to imagine there are some some big moves that they have to make because there’s zero shooting on this team and when one of your you know quotee unquote

Shooters and D’Angelo Russell is a minus 19 in a game that you lose by two that’s tough so I expect some moves to be made it’ll be fascinating to see what they do with their roster uh come trade deadline um you know we saw the Knicks already

Make a big move maybe that’s the first Domino to fall here but could be fun they have very clear areas that they can improve on that can really test the the Timberwolves a little more uh but currently I really like how the Timberwolves match up with them yeah I

Agree um all right wolves Knicks on Monday it’s a mat n 2m Central at the Knicks on NBA TV that’s New Year’s Day the tough stretch continues not a game against a like an unlikely playoff team for nearly two weeks still um so tough stretch continues a big thank you for

Watching tonight live on YouTube on the postcast following at wolves Lakers and if you’re listening to the audio after the fact a big thank you of course you can always find the audio for these shows on the lockdown wolves feed and you can watch live on the lockdown Sports Minnesota YouTube channel after

Each and every Wolves game of course lockon wolves is back on Monday we’re with you every day Monday daily excuse me daily every every day Monday through Friday um your team every day over at locked on wolves a big thank you again for watching a big thank you for

Listening and for Tyler metf have a good one

The Minnesota Timberwolves defeated a fully-healthy Los Angeles Lakers team including LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Ben Beecken (@bbeecken) and Tyler Metcalf (@tmetcalf11) discuss immediately following a wild game.

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6 Comments

  1. Last 5 games against playoff caliber teams, KAT puts up 19 turnovers and 19 PFs. This is a trend, a narrative thats been hovering around KAT. He struggles against quality opponents when they focus on him. The scouting report is out. The shot fake from 3, dribble lob to Gobert is not there anymore. Just stay in front of him and he'll turn it over or commit a charge, then he'll take his frustrations on defense by commiting stupid fouls.

    Send him to TOR for Pascal and pieces or BRK for Bridges, Dorian-Finney and some picks. We need the wing depth and shooting.

  2. Kat is struggling but he's coming back from injury and is struggling to get going, he ok and will bounce back he's perfect for the team, no need to worry.

  3. NBA officiating is horrible across the league. If KAT got calls like Embid where defenders can’t touch him ever, he would average 75 pts/game. If fouls were called fairly for everyone, most of the NBAs “star” defenders would not be “stars”. I agree with Steve Kerr, it is the worst sports product out there. Almost unwatchable. It’s definitely more “entertainment” than sport now, getting closer and closer to wrestling.

  4. Tyler DK Lockett Metcalf

    If the Wolves played smarter these games would not be this close. They really need to put an urgency on turnovers and game management.

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