Stephen A. POINTS THE BLAME on THIS Timberwolves player after falling to 0-3 deficit?! | First Take

Stephen A. POINTS THE BLAME on THIS Timberwolves player after falling to 0-3 deficit?! | First Take

the Mavericks out duel the Timberwolves in clutch time again taking a commanding three series lead Luka donic Kyrie Irving scored 33 points a piece and the Mavericks made all the big plays late beating the t-wolves 116 107 closing with a 123 run winning their fifth consecutive playoff game Kyrie and Luca at the mic he means absolutely nothing right now uh you know that’s not even something I’m thinking about um you know going into game four is still z0 um and that’s the type of motivation and mentality we have in that locker room it’s not just me uh we feel like the job isn’t finished I last possession I told him I’m tired uh he told me that’s that’s the way it’s supposed to be uh you know and just he brought that uh calmness to our team to me uh the maturity and it’s been unbelievable to have him on our team uh just learning from him every day uh positive energy always uh so just just a blessing having him on our team those two clearly having some fun out there Shake tell me this what’s the biggest reason Dallas is Up 3 right now well the two best players from the Mavericks are doing what we exactly what we thought they would do and that was one of the reasons why I picked the uh the Dallas Mavericks because I knew Kyrie and luuka would do what they were supposed to do but for me and and their defense has even been better than I even anticipated Lively junr I don’t think the game would have been that close had Lively Lively the second not taking that knee to the back of the head guys I thought the game because it seemed seemed like it was about to get out of hand until he went down by taking the Carl Anthony towns knee to the back of the head their defense has been Sensational uh Lively the you know uh uh Daniel Gaff uh Gafford was doing an unbelievable job PJ Brown has done an unbelievable job but guys cat what we going to do with cat they went 16 of 42 last night 38% they went nine of 33 in game two 27% cat is shooting 14% from the three and he keeps taking them right hell you can’t make a shot from two that’s closer than the three and you keep jacking up threes he got to be better they’ve got to be better as a Duo to be able to offset what Kyrie and Luca are giving you I’ve had a feeling they would give you somewhere between 55 and 60 points a game based on their average during the regular season they’re doing that cat and and Ant-Man are not even close to what they normally give you in the regular season and they can’t win like that their auxiliary players aren’t good enough yeah Jaden McDaniels having an unbelievable uh shooting from the three but they can’t win unless their two big guns start to go off and I don’t know UD I think it might be a little bit too late do I believe they can come back do I believe they can beat the Mavericks four consecutive games I do not for me this series is over and it’s probably going to be over Tuesday night oh you for sure it’s definitely too late now they they ain’t coming back and I agree with you I I agree with you a th% on C the moment might just be a little bit too bright for him right now the stars are the stars are winning this series these games are possession games that are coming down to your stars making plays at the end we would look at this series and we would think that Dallas has dominated these series but each game could have been won by Minnesota the stars are the ones that are winning these games and the other star hasn’t necessarily showed up the way he’s needed to show up for Minnesota well first of all a couple of things number one you good to see you my brother I’m very very proud of what I’m seeing you on the TV his brother doing some things I mean doing I got to admit it I’m very very impressed with you I’ve been watching them over the last few weeks way to go my brother congrat with that damn right you deserve it my brother let me tell y’all let not you’re not wrong you’re not wrong Shay you ain’t wrong UD D let me throw this out at y’all and see what y’all think about this I’m GNA say the biggest reason the Mavs are up three 0 is because of Anthony Edwards cuz you opened your mouth about Kyrie that’s what I’m going to say now let me be very very clear I understand cat is just been horrible shooting from threes he needs to stop I don’t blame um I don’t blame Draymond Green I don’t blame Shaq I don’t blame chucka for getting on them the way that they did we love cat but the bottom line is damn you called yourself the best the all-time best shooting big man and that has not shown up in this series at all and the way Anthony Edwards got going in that third quarter particularly off of that duck was six 6 minutes and 15 15 seconds left in the third quarter I thought that was going to Galvanize him it was going to elevate their level of play plus he scored like seven straight he was doing his thing but he had no help he looked Gass and there was nobody up there to pick up the slack for him we get all of that right but here’s why I point to Anthony Edwards he opened his mouth and I said this before it’s one thing to open your mouth and say you going to drop 40 the brother can’t stop it no no no no you would talk about what you will go do defensively I got Kyrie and I said this I said this on the air the other day in all my years I mean damn you know I mean I know I look good I look young but I’ve been covering NBA for 30 years I’ve been covering that damn in 30 years y’all I don’t recall one person ever saying I want to God Kyrie Irving i’ never am I lying you D I ain’t never heard that in my life I never heard that in my life and you picked the wrong time to do it too this this this Kyrie that’s on a Redemption tour this is Kyrie who’s the leader of that locker room I know L is their best player but Kyrie is the leader in that so so check this out and that’s where I’m going because of the leadership it’s elevated KY he was already leading but Kyrie was deferring PJ you want some come get some here you go here Derek Jones here you go Luca here you go oh y’all need me to step up in the second half and handle business I’ll do that he was quiet he walked into the Conference Finals y’all averaging 1.6 points in the first quarter yeah 19 total points in in in 12 games in the first two rounds and Anthony Ed was say what he said all of a sudden I’m looking at the numbers here you got Kyrie and Luca averaging 60 to to ant-man’s and cats like 37 they shooting like 60% from the field to they like 207% I’m like no this is bad and don’t get me started with their clutch points they’re averaging 19 points 19 points in the fourth quarter on 69% shooting collect the both of them combined look you can open your mouth and that can sort of galvanize the troops I think that’s what happened with Ant-Man as it pertain to Kyrie I’m not surprised UD I’m not surprised that the Mavericks are great in the clutch they were one of the two best teams in clutch last five minutes of the game within five points so I’m not surprised because you got two of the best ball handlers they can get whatever shot they want unless you Bliss them unless you trap them and take the ball out of their hands Kyrie Irving and Luca dones are going to get to the spot that they want to get to and there’s nothing you can do about that but what I love most about Kyrie okay is the maturity and the growth of which shown abely this is the K this is what LeBron that’s what we were asking for what LeBron was doing for him in Cleveland that he didn’t understand at the time he’s doing the exact same thing for Luca at this time and at this moment I’ll take it one step further what he was expected to do in Boston yes yes what he was expected to do to a lesser degree in Brooklyn he is now doing in Dallas so I I will say this though and I’ll go to you you uh to you UD on this you know speaking with Shannon piggybacking off to Shannon Point Shannon I am surprised from the standpoint when I saw Minnesota’s defense in game two against Denver yes when I saw them again in game seven against Denver amp it up in the second I haven’t seen defense like that in decades and I thought Minnesota the number one defense in the league yeah I’m like yo they coming and what you gonna do with these trees that they can throw out there they have no answer against Luca donic and Kyrie they look defeated they look beaten and every game’s been close but they look defeated you D they’ve tried everything they tried to double team they tried to they tried to Zone I saw him go to Zone last night they tried blitzing they’ve literally tried everything but the problem with that is they don’t have those habits they’ve been the best defensive team all year they haven’t had the blitz they haven’t had the zone so now you’re getting in the playoffs and you’re doing things that you’re not accustomed doing so you’re not comfortable doing these things and these things are taking you out of your comfort zone so yeah they’ve been the best defensive team all year but they have no clue they stop hold it UD I got a question for you okay you said they haven’t been doing this all year what have they been doing all year that made them successful defensively they’ve been able to funnel the ball down to Rudy go bar that paint you if I can fun you down to my shot blocker and he can do what he do is be big down there and just block shots then he can get defensive player of the year and we could be the best defensive team in the league and they can’t do that and they can’t do that cuz you got GFF Lively rolling looking for they got more alop they doubled up the alley so everybody else in the playoffs comb you get two or three lobs in the game you literally suck the defense in and now everybody overreacts and now everybody else is live on that three-point line so all you got to do is get a couple of those lobs look at the last look Shannon look at the last alleyoop that g you know that Gaff slam right Gaff gaffer slammed down right fin look at look at Rudy go he’s like d is coming and I’m like what do I do what so so I couldn’t blame him because if you’re the defender you got to at least keep a body in front of Luca donic Luca is just controlling it get to the hole when he wants to Rudy go B trying to cheat but you really really can’t because you can get the alley to Gafford Al Lively and he’s stuck there’s nothing he can do right I have I have one question though fellas go ahead why doesn’t Minnesota Target Kyrie and Luca on the other end the same way Dallas targets Gober every time pick and roll because they allowed they allowed him to rest they allowed him to rest on the other end of the floor and now they have all their energy and all their power to come back and score on on offense why don’t you put them in some action on the defensive end the same way they go at Rudy goar every time let me tell you why UD they can’t do it only one man can and that’s Anthony Edwards and he Gass yeah bring on the pick and R bring but they can’t do it and so you got to remember Minnesota ranked like 22 in clutch time this year last night you know Kyrie and Luca doing their thing Minnesota was 0 for five in clutch time so you look at them right an’s gas they’ve got else to ATT Lua or ATT Kyrie offensively outside of Anthony Edwards that’s your problem that’s the answer to your question and the difference is is that when you talk about look how they did Denver Denver only had one guy that could really go get his own shot that’s Jamaal Murray the Dallas Maverick has both gu two guys Kyrie how you take the ball out of his hand unless you trap him and now you’re going to leave guys wide open and uh PJ has done a great job of knocking down corn and now youa get whatever he he don’t even feed Jaden McDaniel he doesn’t even see him because he’s getting whatever he wants from the basket all the way out to 28 you know what got me laughing what everybody teasing me talk about yo Stephen A Stephen A you going to have to go to Dallas for the finals Dallas for the finals acting like that’s a bad thing I’m going like this that ain’t the Cowboys if anything that puts more pressure on the Cowboys I’m very happy about it bother me do bother me at all I’m looking forward to it Stephen A Dak spoke about that right with uh uhhuh uhhuh why you speaking on teams that win in the playoffs he said it’s more pressure it’s going to be more pressure on the it when you’re looking at what’s happening in the NBA and the NHL in Dallas the pressure beautiful it’s going to be more pressure than the Cowboys and you know what they spoke out about that they’re feeling it we know what they do Under Pressure nothing that’s right he [Music]

On First Take, Stephen A. Smith, Shannon Sharpe and Udonis Haslem join Molly Qerim to talk through the latest from around the NBA Playoffs.
0:00 Mavs outdoes the Timberwolves
3:00 No coming back for the Wolves?
4:30 Stephen A.’s thoughts on Anthony Edwards
10:00 Clutch time in the series

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