Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Thunder Dominate Game 1 Over Timberwolves

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welcome to hoops tonight. You're at the volume. Happy Tuesday, everybody, and happy conference finals as we kick it off with the Western Conference tonight. Well, was a pretty entertaining game for the most part, outside of a couple of things. We're gonna get into it from a bunch of different angles. Yes, we'll have a little bit of ref talk off of the top, and then at the tail end of the show, we're gonna take ten to fifteen minutes of mail bag

questions from you guys. So if there's some specific angles from tonight's game that you want to dive a little deeper into, let's get those questions into the chat and we'll hit them at the end. It's also nice because right around the time I finish my monologue is when I can get into some of the advanced metrics that populate, you know, fifteen twenty minutes after the game, So we can get a little bit deeper during that mailbag segment.

And then when we finish up here tonight on YouTube, we're heading over to playback dot tv slash Hoops tonight. We'll be taking callers, we'll watch film, we'll just get into the weeds and have some fun. It's a more informal vibe. I've been really in and I've been really enjoying that setting over there, So we'll be heading over there when we finish on YouTube tonight. You guys knowe the Joe before we get started it subscribed to the Hoops to Night YouTube channel, so you don't miss any

more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JCNLTS you guys, don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about a podcast feed wherever we get your podcast on our Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media feeds on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and TikTok, so make sure you guys follow us there.

And then, last but not least, like I mentioned, keep getting those questions into the chat so we can hit him at the tail end of the show. First of all, as we shift to this game, I'm just very excited. This series is going to be a blast as long as Shaye doesn't get a free throw every damn time he flails or falls or trips over air or whatever it is he was doing for the most For the most part in this particular game, I tweeted out after Shay's first foul the first time that he grifted his

way in the lane. There was a second one where Julius Randall clearly grabbed him and was like a very clear There was a similar one late in the game where Jaden McDaniels clearly grabbed Shae when he was initiating that contact. Those sorts of things, I want that called

every time. That's not defense. You're just grabbing. But if you're sliding your feet and you're going down the lane line and Shay's going to just slightly bump into you and fall backwards and flail and throw it up, I don't think that's a basketball play that should be rewarded with free throws. And one of the things I tweeted at the beginning of the game was, if Shae wants to lean on that, that's a great sign for Minnesota because that's not something that's gonna work out in the

large sample. But it did work out tonight as he continued to get the calls. Conspicuously, it was the same ref every time. It was Mark Lindsay who kept giving Shae every single damn touch foul throughout the game. And I think the NBA just needs to pluck Mark Lindsay and just get him out of the playoffs so that we don't have to watch him anymore, because, like to me, it's not about fairness. The whistle was relatively even tonight. Maybe Shae gets three or four additional calls. It's not

the reason Minnesota lost this game. We're gonna talk about that more here in a minute. Okay, so he did a lot of good. To me, it's just about the television product. Basketball calls, like bad calls are a part of basketball games. I'm never gonna get overly worked up on that as far as it pertains to one team or anything along those lines. Again, I don't think that's why Minnesota lost tonight. I'm just super excited because this is going to be a showcase for the young generation

in the NBA. And what we don't need is to watch Shay Gildas Alexander just flailing and doing all that bullshit and getting rewarded with free throws for it. So let's just let's NBA. Let's get Mark Lindsay out of the series. It's not the type of series for him. He wants to ref like it's February. No one's interested in watching that. So let's get him out and then hopefully we can enjoy this series with some quality basketball

between these two teams. The reason why I'm excited about this series is just about every player in this series is a good defender who can do a little bit of dribbling, shooting, and passing. A textbook modern basketball showcase. O Ant and Shay. It's a super fun matchup. You could tell they don't like each other. Aunt with a lot of little gamesmanship early in the game. One time he's standing over the top of Shay. One time he's throwing the ball at him. It's clear they don't like

each other. That's great, that's great for the television. Julius randolvers Jdubb. Two very different types of players. Julius has this insane first half offensively. Jdubb just brilliant defensively all night, showcasing why he was getting just a little bit of defensive player of the Year buzz this year. Again, just an excellent showcase for the young generation of the NBA.

I want it to be about basketball, though, so no more of the grifty bullshit, Like we don't need to see every driving bump get rewarded with free throw, so I hope they get that out of there. It was the tail of two halves though. In the first half, I thought it was very clear that Ant and Julius were pretty comfortable against Oklahoma City's primary perimeter defenders. That what led to Julius getting nice separation on moves into

the lane. At he was really decisive against Alex Caruso, not messing around and trying to beat him with fancy dribble combinations. He was just like, I'm bigger and stronger than Alex, so if I just make a simple move and I protect the basketball, I'm going to be able to get some sort of dribble penetration against this guy. And I thought he had great success there. None of Okase's guards can really stop it from getting to his spot.

It's really just a question of his ability to rise up and knock down shots and to make the kickout passes. I thought both guys, and this is a credit to Okasee. I thought both guys really wore down over the course of the game under Okayse's defense, and foul trouble disrupted their rhythm. But there was a nice trend early in the game that I think should leave all Wolves fans feeling like they have a chance to win this series,

which is just okay sees athletes. They're very good defense, but they don't do too much to make ant and Julius uncomfortable. I also thought in the first half. Oklahoma City looked a little caught off guard just by Minnesota's size and athleticism, just a very different type of athletic file than Denver was or even Memphis was, and I think that it just took them a little bit of time to adjust, particularly on the offensive end of the floor. All you gotta do is look at the box score.

They go for forty four points in the first half, and they go for seventy in the second half. Right in the second half, Oklahoma City settles in. They get some nice ISO scoring early in the third quarter from both Shay and j Dubb. Chet starts getting aggressive and

scoring in the middle of the floor. They start to on the other end of the floor start to win some of those battles on defense against Julius and against and they start to force them into some misses, they get into some foul trouble, and then from there Shay and Chet just put the game away. There were a

lot of openings for Chet. I can't wait to dive further into this in the film, but there were a lot of openings for Chet around the rim, on rolls and on cuts and on crashes, on offensive rebound situations. A bunch of that kind of stuff, and I thought you could really see the difference in the two defensive game plans in that regard, and it manifested in a bunch of key spots in the box score. So, for instance,

Minnesota takes fifty one threes, Oklahoma City takes twenty one threes. Right, Minnesota gets twenty points in the paint, Oklahoma City gets fifty four points in the paint. The way that's manifesting is Minnesota is a lot of like stay home, trust the guy on the ball to do his job. Oklahoma City very much is ford aggressive. We're gambling, we're packing the paint. We're giving up three point shots in hopes of turning you over and having the aggregate kind of

impact of that be it positive. Right, And that's the thing. They gave up a ton of threes tonight. Minnesota did not burn them, and we'll have to talk about that here in a minute. Specifically, their bench really struggled to shoot the ball. But Oklahoma City generated thirty one points off of nineteen Minnesota turnovers and that ended up being a kind of a balance that pays off for them.

But you can see the difference in that defensive scheme right Oklahoma City Ford aggressive packing the paint, overloading the strong side, giving up a lot of threes. It felt like if Minnesota got any sort of dribble penetration into the middle of the floor, there was some sort of kickout opportunity that would lead to a wide open three in the corner for a good shooter that was capable

of knocking the shot down. For Oklahoma City, once they started to get into the middle of the paint, especially when Rudy Gobert checked out of the game, We're gonna get dive into that a little bit here in a minute. But they started to get into the paint and find openings because it's a lot of one on one and two on two down there. Like on that play where Jaden McDaniels gets called for the foul grabbing on Shae when he kind of got tied up going down the

lane line, there's nobody there at the rim. He was able to go right back there and get an easy right hand scooping layup a couple possessions later, a lot of one on one, a lot of two on two that created opportunities for Chet to be an impactful vertical spacer as a cutter and crasher and finisher around the basket, and then Shay getting into the lane consistently drawing those fouls.

In that second half, Aunt and Julius were never able to gain any sort of rhythm outside of a brief little Anthony Edwards burst in the middle third quarter, and next thing you know, we're looking at a blowout because that Oklahoma City train got going and Minnesota was never

never able to reassert control of the situation. I want to just kind of go through some notes that I have from both teams, and then when we're done with that again, we're going to go to the mailbag, and you guys, any direction of the series you want to dive further into, will start to dig into some of the numbers too as they update. So on the Oklahoma City front, I thought Jay Dubb was great in this game. I think he was fine on offense. Nothing that you're

going to write home about. Not super efficient, but he didn't turn the basketball over and to get nineteen points and five assists with zero turnovers on eighteen shots, even though it's not the most efficient thing in the world, that's a fine offensive game. In the Western Conference Finals, I thought he was incredible on defense in this game. Five steals, attacking Aunt and Julius every time they turned their back in post ups and getting the ball knocked

away that way, random turnovers with full court pressure. He got one against Julius Randall that way. Just flying around on defense. He defended on an island against nas Red multiple times and got stops. Just bumped him really hard on the first one and forced a turnover, bumped him on a spin on the second one. They brought a nice little baseline double. I think it was from Caruso on that play too that they got another stop. JDub

was just an incredible defensive force in this particular game. Okay, so he got a nice little shift from Kenrich Williams in this game, he defended really well. He ran some pick and pop where nos Reed was kind of defending him as like a traditional screen defender, which was leaving him open on the pop. He had a three there. He was plus thirteen in eight minutes. A nice little stretch from Williams. Overall, I thought it was one of

Chet's best games in this playoff run. We talked about the work that he did as like kind of a vertical spacer in the middle of the floor. I also thought he did an amazing job on the defensive glass in the second half. You watched the tape in that second half, He's getting a body on somebody. Every time he's boxing out, he's high pointing the basketball. Oklahoma City was able to regain control because Minnesota did a lot of damage on the offensive glass in the first half.

Minnesota was not able to do that damage in the second half, and I thought a big part of that was chet Holmgrin and then Alex Caruso all the work he's doing defensively. He struggled a little bit with Julius

Randald tonight. Him continuing to be like the most reliable catch and shoot spot up guy for Oklahoma City is a revelation and it's turning him into one of the most profoundly impactful playoff role players in the league right now, because, like I mean, I remember when I rooted for Alex Cruz, so that wasn't really a big part of his game. It was like you could knock him down shot forty percent his final season with the Lakers, but struggled to

shoot him in the postseason. It was never really what you were in the alex Crusoe business for but him knocking down all of these catch and shoot threes is making him immensely valuable as a three and D player in this playoff field. On the minutes the front again, I still think Aunt and Julius can generate quality shots. I thought in the second half it was a lot of fatigue and foul trouble related stuff where you know, there was an extended stretch there where Aunt and Julius

were both just off the floor. I mean, an it was playing pretty well in that mid third quarter and he picked up a weak ass foul and another one of those stupid ass shake yilds of Alexander bump and run shots, and it just took him out of the game. And I just thought when he came in he struggled to regain rhythm at that point. It was a very

different game too. By the time Aunt came back in, the game was not out of reach, but it was in a fundamentally different type of position as a late, you know, fourth quarter double digit lead than it was in that third quarter stretch. But over the course of this series, those two guys have to do essentially what they did. They have to basically do what I always talk about with veteran players, which is like find the stuff that's working and replicate it. Take the mistakes, got

to trim that fat, stay away from it right. Julius Randall got a little sloppy with the basketball in the second half. Anthony Edwards got a little sloppy with the basketball in the second half. You give up thirty one points to Oklahoma City off of turnovers. You're shooting yourself in the foot and you're gonna make it really, really

difficult to win at that point. But overall, just looking at the physical dynamic, Ant's too big and strong and athletic for all of Oklahoma City's guards, and Julius Randall is a big, powerful forward that can find matchups that he can attack. So that's a very strong foundation for them offensively in this series. Their bench guys have to hit shots, though, like it's it's rough. Nas Red one for eleven, Dante DiVincenzo three for fourteen, Nikhil Alexander Walker

three for eleven. That's seven for thirty six from the field. From the depth that we talked about coming into this series as one of the strengths of this Minnesota roster and a lot of them guys like this, there are some uncomfortable things. I thought Dante looked a little rushed on some of his on ball stuff, right like I thought nas Reed's post up were ugly. But there was a lot of butt naked three point shots in there

that those dudes were missing. And they went five for twenty eight from three and so with At and Julius and the types of quality threes that they were generating, those guys just have to pay them off the turnovers to transition. Again, this is going to be the key to the series. Like Oklahoma City will have a hard time scoring against Minnesota in the half court, especially when

they have a big on the floor. But if you're going to gift wrap them thirty one points running out the other way when your defense isn't set, you're putting yourself in a really tough position to win. And then, lastly, the last thing I want to focus on before we get into our mailbag is Rudy Gobert. I can't come into the series if you guys remember in my series preview I talked about how I didn't really see this

as as much of a center type of series. I specifically said I wouldn't be surprised if we looked back at the end of the series and that both Rudy Gobert and Isaiah Hartenstein averaged fewer than twenty minutes per game. Isaiah Hartenstein twenty minutes tonight, Rudy Gobert twenty one minutes. The Rudy Gobert piece, by the way, I thought Chet held up fine, So this is not necessarily an OKA see take. I thought okac's small ball groups did fine.

If it turns into something where Minnesota starts really overwhelming them with physicality, maybe it's something they have to look into expanding Isaiah's role, But specifically with Gobert, I think it's a little bit more complicated than just what meets the eye there. Rudy's a frustrating player. There were a lot of sequences tonight where he was gift wrapped pretty high quality opportunities on trails and rolls around the basket where his inability to finish anything in traffic was a problem.

And that's an important problem, something that we need to factor in when we have discussions about Rudy. He also had a pretty rough first defensive ship as he picked up a couple of fouls, but I thought from that point forward, I thought he was fine defensively, and I actually thought his presence on the back line was part of the struggles that Shay Gilders Alexander was dealing with. Shay really got comfortable going downhill towards the rim in

the second half of this game. And so when I really start to parse out the impact of Rudy in this particular matchup against an Oklahoma City team that isn't the highest level back line processing sort of team in this matchup, I would like to see Rudy Gobert at least I would like to see Chris Finch explore using him a little bit more, simply because there is a little bit of a dynamic when he's on the floor when SHA's there, where Shaye wants to operate a little

bit more in the short to mid range, whereas when he's not out there, he wants to go right to the bucket. And so I think it's worth just exploring a little bit more, just expanding Rudy Gobert's role more. There was an extended stretch in this game where Chris Finch went with no center with nas Reed off and with Rudy off, and look, I get it. You know, Rudy has his offensive limitations. Nas Reed was having the

game from Hell for him. But I'm not necessarily, you know, pushing back against that in this particular game because it was going off the rails anyway. But it's something to adjust potentially in game two. I wouldn't be so quick to the pull the plug on Rudy Gobert because I do think he has a little bit of a mental impact on Shae on Jdubb, forcing them into some of those tougher contested mid range shots.

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And it's and it's it's one of those things where I feel like when Aunt and Julius didn't turn the ball over and they got some sort of rim pressure in the form of a dribble drive from Aunt or a post up ripped through from Julius, I thought they

got good looks. They just lost control of the game and transition and Julius got in foul trouble and got a little fatigued in the second half, and their advantage creation wasn't as good and like they're four bench spot up guys went five for twenty eight from three liked. Do you agree with me Jackson that Minnesota got some quality looks on those kickouts, Like did you think it was you know, okay See rushing them or do you think they were just missing some shots.

criticism of Dante's shot selection. I think some of those, like uber deep ones, might have been not the best shot, but some of them I thought he were great looks and he just missed. He was one for six at one point, and I think I think the first four or five of those were very makeable. So it's tough. I mean, I do think that they their stars were sloppy, were too sloppy at times from a shot from like a turnover and shot creation standpoint. But I also feel like the bench just has to shoot that.

I like the point you made about Dante DiVincenzo. I think that there's a we know Dante can make those shots. It's just when you take a relatively quick above the break three when you're not in rhythm, it just has a higher percentage chance of leading to one of those long rebounds that leads to one of those runouts. I'm a big believer in your shot selection should reflect your rhythm.

So like if you're out of rhythm, meaning like you're you've been missing, the answer is to hunt easy opportunities. Run your lane in transition. See if you can't get a layup or a wide open three, crash the offensive glass. See if you can't get an offensive rebound, put back or draw a foul, get yourself to the foul line.

When I see guys that are already having poor shooting nights start taking pretty tough off the dribble threes, it's like that's the kind of shot that you're not that that's not going to get you out of your slump, Like that's that's trying to ram your head through a brick wall. And I did think we saw a little bit of that with Dante tonight.

Game two typically follows a certain feel. We've all seen this kind of series million times.

cut the lead to two, they tie the game. That's where you can throw a card like that and stall out okac's offense and potentially steal a win. I think Minnesota's base man to main look can work in this matchup. And I think Chris Finch just made a judgment call in this game that it wasn't worth pulling that card. They lost by twenty six. You know, it may be a totally different vibe in game two.

I think that's what he was thinking. And so I think there's a good amount of Julius just pressing up and not giving him those wide open catch and shoot threes, and Julius was I thought Julius's driving kick play was

fine in the second half. I mean, he kind of has this like lebron esque ability to just elevate off of one leg and throw these jump passes that are like terrible passes for like anybody else in the league, but because he's a good enough athlete and he just rifles the one handed, you know, line drive past to where it needs to go. Thought his kicks were fine, it's just they pressed up on his threes and inside the paint. It is going to be a playmaking series

for Randall. Like it's not like this is not Oklahoma City is overloading the ball. Aunt and Julius are going to be taking a lot of over the top shots. I meant to mention this when we were talking about Gobert earlier. But that's the other thing. Is like ant and Julius's success as scores in tonight's game came from the perimeter. So from a certain point of view, Gobert's spacing concerns are less valuable again within in the context of an over the top shooter than they are just

like a downhill type of threat. Right, Like it could be a death sentence if John Moran is your guard, but if it's Anthony Edwards, a guy who's an excellent three point shooter, it's not as big of a deal. And so that's why I think like it'll be something to experiment a little bit more with over the course of the series, but specifically with Julius. I thought he was fine with his driving kicks. They pressed up on

his threes. He had a few soppy turnovers in the second half of you know that that bullyball post up against lou Dort and then that you know little half court ripped from j dub where he just lost it at it bounds. But overall overall, I think he's got plenty of advantages. It's just gonna be a playmaking series for him.

Because I didn't feel like there was quite a few times where they were stunting and they were maybe doubling for one second and getting back. There's a lot of like mental mind games. I felt they were playing with Julius in the second half because they have so much speed on the perimeter.

don't like him posting against. Also really quickly, guys, here's these are These are just insane numbers coming out of this game. Minnesota generated eighteen unguarded catch and shoot jump shots, Oklahoma City generated eleven. So sticks to the thing we talked about earlier, in terms of quality catch and shoots. Oklahoma City got two point one point eight points per unguarded catch and shoots, so they made almost all of them.

Minnesota zero point eight three three, So substantial shooting gap towards OKC if you take a look at the all catch and shoots thirty five for Minnesota, sixteen for OKC, zero point eight to three points per tempt for Minnesota one point eight eight points per tentp for OKAC. So there was definitely, like, I mean, guys like they're shooting

variants is a part of basketball. There are certain types of shots that the process leads to the result, and then somewhere down that list of factors is like when dudes are getting wide open looks, they just got to knock them down and there was just like a clear nas Dante, Nikiel. The three of those dudes just missed open look after open look after open look, and that became something that got in their heads a little bit over the course.

goes with both of them. Julius as well. I thought Jay Dubb was better in the second half than either of Julius or Ant. But yeah, like we're gonna talk about that when we get to the series, Like this is game one, guys, Like I'm not I'm gonna bury guys at the end of the series, like this is this is where we're in Round one here, guys and everyone everyone who was here when Aunt got eliminated in Dallas.

Does anybody remember how I talked about Aunt then I criticized him for the way he played, Like you get the series, ain't over people.

Julius was generally pretty comfortable going against Caruso. Dort's got a little bit like wider, lower center of gravity and is a little bit more of a fire hydrant than Alex Crusoe is. So I think it's one of those things where it's something you could tinker with. But honestly, I didn't think that was the I didn't think that was the game. I mean, they're defending Julius and Ant with multiple bodies every single time. It's more just about it's like it like if I dig into the ice,

let me check in the isodata here real quick. I didn't think there was any specific like, oh, Julius is just getting one on one buckets over and over again. It was he hit threes over the top, and he was able to spray out to shooters. Yeah, Minnesota twenty one ISO zero point six seven points per possession including passes, like they weren't. They weren't now again including passes, you

got to count the kickouts. But it's one of those things where it wasn't like thirteen post ups for Minnesota zero point five to four points per possession including passes, So it wasn't like they were getting beat one on one. It was you know, it was the shot result at the end that was that was causing those those numbers. Yeah.

matchups against Chet. I feel like after Chet got his chest caved in by Nikola Jokic last matchup, you want to replicate that Hertenstein is obviously very very big and strong, and Hertenstein is doing an awesome job, you know, keeping Julius from really getting deeper position on some of those post ups. But Chet doesn't have that, I don't think.

All right, guys, that's all we have for tonight. We are headed over to playback though, so playback dot TV slash Hoops tonight will be taking callers, will be hanging out just having fun talking hoops for another forty five minutes or so. We'll see you guys over there in a little bit. As always, we appreciate you guys. We'll have a film session on our YouTube channel tomorrow morning, breaking down Game one. I'll see you guys then. What's up guys? As always, I appreciate you for listening to

and supporting OOPS tonight. They would actually be really helpful for us if you guys would take a second and leave a rating and a review. As always, I appreciate you guys supporting us, but if you could take a minute to do that, I really appre ship.