Hoops Tonight - LIVE: Thunder Go Up 3-1 On Timberwolves With Clutch Game 4 Win

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welcome to tonight. You're at the volume heavy Monday. Everybody. Hope all you guys are having a great start to your week well as expected. Game four ended up being the long awaited, very close game in this series between these two teams. This series has been pretty rough to watch at times, as the teams have just beat the shit out of each other in different ways, but we finally kind of settled down into the appropriate game plans

for both teams. And obviously both of these teams are very familiar with each other and the way they want to play, and tonight they both threw their best punches, and I thought Oklahoma City just looked like a better basketball team as they demonstrated a kind of not a wired to wire win, but a game that they felt pretty much in control of throughout as they responded to every single Minnesota Timberwolves run and never let them overtake them with that momentum, and now they're headed back to

Oklahoma City up three to one and very likely going to send this thing to the NBA Finals on Wednesday night. Very interesting game. We're gonna get into it from a bunch of different angles, and then we wrap up here tonight we're gonna be heading over to playback again that's Playback dot TV slash Hoops tonight, or we're gonna be taking callers and it's more informal. We just kind of shoot the shit, talk hoops and have fun for an extra hour after the show. So make sure you guys

come over there and hang out with dust. You guys owe the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channels. 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 figure out o podcast few wherever you get your podcast under Hoops Tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's soon great work on our social

media feeds, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Make sure you guys follow us there. In the last but not least, keeping keep getting questions into our chat. We're gonna take a solid ten fifteen minutes of questions at the tail end of tonight's YouTube stream. So all you have to do is subscribe to the channel, drop your questions questions into the chat, and then we'll be taking questions with Jackson.

All right, let's talk some basketball. So obviously, there were a couple of things we knew Oklahoma City was going to do better tonight, no matter what, like, regardless of any other factors, involving some their young role players and conquering the specific demons that this team has dealt with over the years. Which we'll talk about in a little bit, But there are a couple of things we knew they would do better. No matter what we knew, they would

up their defensive intensity. This is an elite defensive team, and defense is one of the most reliably reliable traits in a basketball team in these environments, you want to know why it's kind of unusual to see some of the offensive success we've seen in recent NBA seasons, teams like Denver winning a title, or teams like Indiana New York making it to the conference finals when they were

mediocre defenses all year. Indie played better defense towards towards the tail end of the year, but the Knicks played shitty defense the majority of the season, and then they somehow played the best defense of their life against the Celtics and got them out of there. Right, It's unusual to see that sort of thing. There's a reason why, when you go back through decade after decade after decade, it's the defensive teams that end up making deep playoff runs.

It's because it's the reliable trait. We all knew that Oklahoma City would bring a great defensive punch tonight. They kept aunt relatively in check as a score, because again that's their game plan by constantly swarming him and getting good closeouts on shooters. Obviously, their scheme concedes a bunch

of corner threes. We've talked about that a ton in this series, and Minnesota hit a ton of those corner threes tonight, but they generally made things difficult and then they basically got Julius Randall to quit in this game, and so that that's another thing that we'll get to later. But we also knew that they would take much better care of the basketball. Right, those are the two things that we knew that they would bring, and they had that weird stretch in the first half of Game three.

If you guys remember where they just gifted Minnesota a bunch of easy opportunities in transition, and they cleaned that up. Right, They took better pit care of the basketball tonight, and they came out and you know, were tough in their game plan. Again, their game plan concedes shots at that

Minnesota hit tonight at a very high clip. But they came out and did a better job because if you remember, in Game three, it was everyone was going, including ant and Julius, and in this game, you had a little bit of a burst from Aunt in the second half,

but they kept Ant and Julius under control, right. But we also knew that Minnesota changed their game plan right, less ball pressure on Shay, more shrinking the floor, more loading up the plane the paint, and so that was obviously going to put a heavy emphasis on different things for Oklahoma City than we saw in the beginning of the series. In the beginning of the series, there's a lot of just like Kinche and Jadab go one on

one downhill and get to the rim. Very different in this setting where all of a sudden they're packing the paint the rim opportunities are fewer and further between all of a sudden, It's going to be about Shay's processing in his ability to make the right types of aggressive moves on the floor, a lot of over the top shot making right, a lot of processing out of double

teams right. For Jadub, it was going to be a test of his secondary scoring and his ability to obviously be an off ball threat to score right spot up shooting across the board. For the entire Thunder roster, that's been one of the demons they've dealt with from time to time throughout this entire season and throughout last year as well, right, But those were those were the things that were gonna come to the surface. And then you can always give yourself a better chance to win a

game if you can win the possession battle. Tonight, they forced the Timberwolves into twenty three turnovers and they grabbed nineteen offensive rebounds. That's forty two extra possessions. Guys, they attempted eleven more shots than Minnesota tonight in a game they won by two. And that's what it comes down to. We talked about this at the beginning of after after Indiana went up two to zero against the Knicks. This concept of like grabbing the low hanging fruit in basketball.

These are things that they can do consistently by pursuing the ball when it comes off of the rim, by picking up full court, by digging into passing lanes, by trusting their game plan, by doing those those things, they can just increase their margin for air by generating forty two extra possessions. That obviously gave them all that margin

for air. But again, the test needed to be solved, and I was just really impressed down the roster with Oklahoma City tonight, it felt like they were in a lot of ways, like leveling up from some of the mistakes that we've seen them make in series past. Within this postseason in Years Past, right, we saw Shay, a guy that I've seen many times in his career, just fly into the lane when teams are really selling out

on him and just force up bad shots. He was super methodical, picking on specific mismatches that he liked, really liked Rudy Gobert right, really liked nas Reed, really like Dante DiVincenzo when he'd get the switch cycling out guys from that top of the key spot, like if he wanted to ISO in the top of the key, he didn't want a shooter super close to him. He was trying to cycle him down and have them work along the baseline because he wanted to have space around the

elbows to work. He knew he wasn't going to be able to drive, but he knew he'd be able to get to his right shoulder fade, his left shoulder fade, his right shoulder step back, his left shoulder step back, and so he wanted to create space around the elbows for him to work. And he just repeatedly over and over again, got to his spots and hit those shots, hit threes against soft ball pressure, which again was part

of Minnesota's game plan. It changed Shay's job from get downhill and score at the rim to become a surgical processor and over the top shot maker, and he knocked it out of the park. In addition to that making the kickout reads that he needed to make that big three that Jade up hit on the left wing hard nail help. I think it was Jaden because of a switch came over at the elbow and it's like, yeah, you can try to force it, or you can just throw the ball to j Dub and see if you

can make a shot. You can throw the ball to Chet as he's slipping out of a pick and pop or as he's spacing on the wing and trust him to knock the shot down. Ten more assists tonight for Shay Gildas Alexander You's surgical tonight. I think the job has been very different for Ant, and I think that Ant has actually shown a lot of growth in this series in terms of his relentless making those corner kickout reads. As the game plan has been geared towards stopping him.

But even with the growth from Ann, I think there's a lot of encouraging stuff from Ant in this series. Jay's been better than it. Shay's been better than it. Now will Ant in the long run, as he gets older and he gets more experiencedab will he'll be able to close that gap. We'll see. But in this series through four games, there's a very similar game plan tonight that Shay faced to what Ant's face. It a lot of a lot of bodies waiting for him at the basket.

The difference is Shay has built out an ultra reliable shot making game in the mid range. Shay wasn't getting the grift calls in that second half. He got a nasty one against Gobert in the first half, kind of a textbook example of the kind of thing that I think needs to be taken out of the league. But

in the second half he tried it twice. He tried the classic bump shot along the left lane line he actually made it, and then he tried another grift one on to kill Alexander Walker on the right elbow, which he actually made as well. But he wasn't getting the calls and so he adjusted his approach and he stopped trying to grift in that fourth quarter and he just went straight up, I'm going to get separation and I'm

gonna knock down shots. And he just did it again and again and again and made the necessary reads when they were there, huge one late when he kind of lost control, and then Jaden McDaniels throws a double team off of JDub and he throws that beautiful pass just right through Jada mcdaniels's legs to JDub on the perimeter.

It's like, if there's a lesson for Aunt to learn, because there's I was kind of getting frustrated as I was listening to Richard Jefferson talk about how Ant just needs to find ways to just force his way through all that traffic, or Steven A. Smith and the Halftime Show saying similar stuff Ant needs to The answer wasn't to force his way through and try to shoot through

four people every single time. The lesson for Ant to learn from the series is that having a back to the basket or kind of like comfortable dribble iso game around the elbows is a very reliable thing that you can go back to when teams pack the paint. This is what Kobe Bryant made a living out of. Like when you have the ability this is what Michael Jordan

made a living out of. When you have inevitably a defensive scheme that keeps you away from the rim, it will either make you a deep pull up three point shooter or a passer, or if you can build out that high post. Back to the basket game, you can have another card that you can go to that's impervious to the packing the paint method. And in this series, facing a very similar game plan tonight, Shay was able to get to his spots and repeatedly score without having

to overpenetrate. They took a few bad ones tonight, but it wasn't like what we saw it sometimes in the Denver series, and that's the lesson that it needs to learn. There's a version of his game that could have a punch for this type of game. We talk all the time about how different series present different issues. Shae's the best driver of the basketball in the league. The first two games, with the way Minnesota was guarding, they needed him to drive. He used that skill. Let's say in

Game five or Minnesota just starts hard double teaming. Then it's going to be about handling pressure and making quick decisions. Tonight sagging packing the paint all of a sudden, It's about being deliberate with your spacing and over the top shot making. You've got to have a punch for every single setting, and it had a punch for the game plan tonight. It was his corner kicks and I thought he was great with them, but if he could have put a few more buckets up, it could have been

the difference in this game. And he was able to get to his pull up three plenty, But that's a much higher variance shot. It's twenty seven feet instead of fifteen feet. At fifteen feet, he might be able to hit it forty eight fifty two percent of the time a contested pull up twenty eight foot or twenty seven footer on his best day as a thirty to thirty three ish percent shot. That that's where he needs to

bring in that part of his game that's reliable. What has made Luca a reliable offensive player round a round short range shot making, what is made Jokic a reliable player round to round short range shot making. That is the thing that he's got to add and I just thought Shay was super, super impressive tonight with that Jadub Obviously, with this game plan, it was going to put a heavy emphasis on JDub needing to be able to score

the basketball and his ability to space the floor. How many times tonight did Minnesota get a stop and then someone would get an offensive rebound and the ball would get sprayed out to JDub and he did a backbreaking three or mail help off to to try to deal with shake yel Desallexander swing pass, backbreaker three. Those were

so important in this game. And then in his on ball reps, perpetually getting into the lane, getting that dribble penetration, bringing in multiple defenders, and even when we're talking about the offensive rebounding piece, there's a lot of it that's super frustrating with Minnesota where it's like Rudy Gobert is.

I find Rudy Gobert to just be an incredibly frustrating player to watch, and I just do not understand his stands and all of the belief in his talent level because like to me, he's a defensive player that gets himself out of position in no man's land constantly. He's a defensive rebounder that will legitimately just get his butt kicked by mediocre kind of like replacement level starting centers

in this league. I don't see it. But there are also offensive rebounds that were happening tonight by a product of the rotations, by a product of the fact that there are people stepping over in the lane. There was an offensive rebound that gave up because he came over to strong side zone agains shake Gilgess, Alexander on an iso in case on Wallace just ended up crashing in behind. There's a lot of stuff that comes from the way that defense is getting broken down by shape, by getting

broken down by Jay Dubb. But I thought Jay Dubb that's arguably the best game of his career tonight goes for thirty four points on twenty four shots, five assists, just two turnovers. He had three steals in this game as well. Unbelievable game. Spot up shooting down the board. Again. We've talked about this time and time again. How are the thunder going to be able to win in the postseason.

They need their young guys to confidently step into tough contested catch and shoot threes and knock them down Chet two more threes tonight, a huge one off of a pick and pop where Aunt came peeling off of his man and got a great contest and he just confidently stepped in there, ripped the cord. We talked about Jay Dub hitting catch and shoot threes. Lou Dort hits one, Ken rig Williams hits one, Alex Cruso hits two, Isaiah Joe hits one, case On Wallace hits one. They hit

the shots they needed to hit. Forty three percent from three tonight, sixteen for thirty seven. Chet Holmgren like that defensive play, that spin move from Jad McDaniel, swatting it off the glass, his aggressive iso attacks against nasried Or he's spinning off of him and dunking the spot up shooting, like we talked about Kesan Wallace, he had three or four tough contested mid range pull up jump shots tonight.

Those are found money in the playoffs. Alex Crusoe obviously the destructive defender that we know he can be, but all those sneaky cuts along the baseline, just finding those openings and when his defender turns his head. He was amazing at that. Back in his days with the Lakers. They're just this looks like a team that has learned from previous failures and that has turned into a championship level basketball team. One of my things that I love about the game of basketball is it forces you to

overcome adversity. It forces you to overcome checkpoints and tests to get to where you want to go. They had to be pushed by Denver tonight, even pushed by Minnesota, their weaknesses emphasized. I didn't like the game plan at the beginning of the series, thought Minnesota was accentuating their strengths here in Minnesota. They played the game plan that accentuated Okaysee's weaknesses and they got out of here with

the split. Series isn't over, obviously, but I feel pretty strongly that Oklahoma City is going to close the deal. I think they've demonstrated themselves to be the better team in the series. I think their star is a better processor and a better more versatile score than Anthony Edwards is. I thought Jalen Williams one hard to do tonight with the low bar that Julius Randalls set, but I thought he was far and away the best secondary star tonight.

Chet Holmgren out played any Minnesota role player except for Nakhil Alexander Walker, just to down the roster. Out classing in this series by the Oklahoma City Thunder against the Minnesota Timberwolves. And I think they're gonna go to the finals and I think they're gonna win. I think they

match up extremely well with Indiana. I think they match up extremely well with New York, and we could be heading into our We could be heading into our first situation where we have a roster young enough and cheap enough because of the situation with all their young talent, to where we could have some sustained success in the NBA. This was the chance I had Oklahoma City as my second leading championship contender coming into tonight or coming into

this playoff run. But I viewed them as vulnerable. I

viewed them as vulnerable this season. But with each passing year, the talent increase for Chet as he continues to develop, the talent increase for Jalen, the talent increase for every one of these young guys off the bench, like keyes On Wallace, They're going to get better and better every year from here in a way that's going to be probably more impactful than whatever mid level exception you can sign or mediocre trade you can make on the margins.

This was the year to get Oklahoma City, and I think tonight was the last chance that anybody had, and I think Minnesota blew it. So with that being the case, this is the year that's supposed to be too early, and it looks like to me that Oklahoma City is going to get it done. Super super exciting for Timberwolves fans, or excuse me, for thunder fans, I am. I have to talk about Julius Randall for a second, because Julius Randall. Let me just tell a little story of the last

three games. Julius Randall has a nightmaragely bad game two, like embarrassingly bad bad games happen in the postseason. He comes out in Game three and things go his way. It's hitting shots, the crowd is in it. It's up and down, fast ray type of game. Oklahoma City, let's go with the rope a little bit. They're up by forty. Julius is making plays and at one point he looks in the camera and he goes like, we're home now, We're home now. My bad game was because we were

on the road, we're at home now. And then he comes out tonight and a couple of things don't go his way in the opening minutes, and then he floats through the rest of the game, stands around the three point line. Every time the ball makes its way to him, he's just rifling it down the line in the next skip pass or swing pass, just taking these mediocre to bad catch and shoot threes, not in impacting the game in any substantial way as a rebounder or as a defender.

Just he was like, game's not going my way. I'm done. I like, I don't care who you are as a basketball player, if you're in a situation where you have the talent level that Julius Randall has a game like tonight, five points with five turnovers completely unacceptable, like completely unacceptable. He let his team down. Yeah, you're getting swarmed. You

know who else was getting swarmed? Anthony Edwards. And I saw Anthony Edwards try like hell to solve that puzzle tonight, like legitimately in that second half, just pouring his heart and soul into the game to try to fucking get a win. And the dude who's partner in crime is pouting and floating around and not doing his job. You lost by two. You could have gone back to Oklahoma City in a two to two series. I talk about this all the time. I don't care what kind of

game you're having. I don't care if you come out and you have four nasty turnovers and two or three bad shots and a couple of defensive mistakes, and your coach is chewing your ass whatever it is, you have time to make a play, and one play could be

the difference. One play where you get a defensive rebound and you see an opportunity to just hit the jets in transition and just force the issue because you're one of the biggest, most powerful athletes on the floor, and an opportunity to go draw a fout, bulldoze your way to the rim for an offensive rebound, put back, do something, fight, show some fight. Julius succumbs to his bad games. Ah

fuck it. I just don't have it tonight. And it's just so frustrating to watch because, like again, like one play could have been the difference. One play. Minnesota had possession down three in the final minute of this game, One more play could have been the difference. That's why you have to stay engaged. That's why you have to fight. You fight because you might have another chance. You just might have an opportunity fall into your lap to turn a bad night into a good night if you just

stay engaged and you just fight. And I just was, I was just so disappointed. I can only imagine how Anthony Edwards is feeling tonight as he's looking at the box score and feeling like his teammate like straight up was like, now my night, you guys got this. I just I was so annoyed by that. Anyway, let's get Jackson up here. Any other angles that you guys want to get to in this series, Just pop those questions in the chat. We're gonna take about ten fifteen minutes worth of questions here.

did his job in terms of attacking the coverage. Here's the thing, though, there is a certain element of score that is impervious to coverage that Shay has that Aunt doesn't have. Right now. It has it in the form of the pull up three or the you know, four or five drives a game where he'll just knife through like three dudes and like eurostep and somehow find his

way at the front of the rim. But again, you're going to be limited to being a sixteen point a game playmaker in a slow down half court game where the team is loading up on you unless you build

some sort of reliable, over the top game. And for the record, guys like you want to know why James Harden never had success as like a sustainable, reliable offensive threat in the postseason, it was because his half court I need a bucket shot when teams would load up the paint and help on him and do all that stuff was step back three. And look, the step back three is a useful shot to have in your bag. I don't want to sit here and denigrate the step back three, but if it's all you got, then you

are at absolutely handcuffing yourself. And I think there's a certain reliability to having that. Okay, you've got three dudes waiting for me in the paint. I've got a defender in front of me that I know I can shoot over. But I need to get to a spot where I can make half of these and that is around the elbows,

that is in the short corner. And Shae has that in his game and like we talked about it throughout this postseason run and took like more than twice as many mid range jump shots just last year in the postseason, and he just needs to build that part out of his game. And if anything, getting into the offseason and watching the tape from this series, he just needs to look at not the fouls that Shay has drawn, but look at the shots that Shay has made in this series,

and look at where they've come from. Because they're He's getting his opportunities right there at the elbows, regardless of what the coverage is.

slinky arms as he's dribbling the ball around. His ability to work with his back to the basket around the elbows is a way to conserve energy throughout a game. And like, right now, you know what, you know what I would argue the two toughest shots you can take as a basketball player is a contested rim attempt and a contested step back three in terms of like difficulty on the body, beating one defender, to swallom through a second defender, to elevate over a third defender is exhausting.

And to get separation from an elite on ball defender to then lift from twenty seven feet from the basket and get enough lift for you to be able to flip the wrists and get the ball there, that's gonna take a lot of energy. And so I think that's part of it. The conditioning. Like I didn't see a moment tonight where it felt like Aunt was too tired to score. I just thought he took threes and wasn't making him because those are high variance shots and he

was consistently getting into the paint making the kickouts. He just he doesn't have the indomitable scoring trait that Shay has yet, and he can. He's got all the tools for it. He's just got to build it out.

unless you're on the twenty seventeen Warriors, which is the most talented roster ever assembled, like or you're like like that Celtics team last year in the East, Like there are a handful of examples where a team can ride a supreme talent advantage all the way through to the finish line, but it's exceptionally rare and generally speaking, you're

gonna face adversity. Like j Dubb was so bad in the Denver Series, Like so bad in the Denver Series last last round, but like he didn't quit on his team. He went one for fifteen or whatever the hell it was that he wentered four for seventeen, and then like he kept trying to make something happen and he conquered

those demons and has been fantastic in this series. In I would be terrified with the Julius Randall thing if I like signed up long term for that that he's gonna just in a big spot bow out on his team because things didn't go his way as far as the rest of the roster. Like I'm over the Rudy

Gobert experience. I think if you're paying thirty plus million dollars to a player that can't get a defensive rebound, that that is his defensive value is substantially lower than his pedigree would lead you to believe, and who legitimately can't catch and finish anything in traffic, Like you want to know why we all freaked out on that dunket Hartenstein. We're like, oh shit, I can't believe he did that, because it's just so unusual for him to like make

a play in traffic in a situation like that. And so I think there's certain conversations you need to have about resource allocation. Like I love nasried love to Alexander Walker. I think Dante DiVincenzo is a playoff player. Mike Conley battles you know, Ant is the foundational piece of your franchise, But I'd be looking strongly at the Randall Gobert pairing and just be looking in the big picture what gives

me the best chance. But don't let that take away from the fact that I do think that if Ant was better, they could have won this series. Ant's twenty three years old. He in the next two to three seasons needs to build out a reliable part of his game. I'm looking at Synergy right now, shag gilges Alexander is shooting fifty four percent on jump shots inside of seventeen. That is so reliable to be able to go to a shot that he can make more than half the time.

That's the like I think if Ant builds that out, that is what will get him to the point where he can elevate some of these rosters too far above what they're capable of.

five man pursuit of the basketball. In Oklahoma City was faster to the ball tonight.

a mistake. I think that Mark Dagnault going with his base defensive scheme against Indiana would be a mistake. I do, okay, So I think Indiana is in the same way that like for Aunt, making him a playmaker forces him to confront his weaknesses, and by the way, he's making some signs of growth, but there's still a lot of potential there. To me, the weakness for Tyres Haliburton is like let's see, let's see you go get a bucket against Chet over and over again. Let's see you go get a bucket

against Hartenstein over and over again. Or you're on ball defender a guard that you like against the switch. So I I think if you just let Tyris Aliburton, because here's the thing, Tyres Aliburton never turns the ball over. That's like his superpower. So if you let him dribble the ball at the floor and you load up the strong side and you let him just pitch it to Siakam in the weekside or a Nie Smith in the

weekside corner all series long. Then you're gonna make what should be an unwinnable series into a winnable series for Indiana. So let's keep an eye on the game plan. Here's my thing. In this series, Oklahoma City's base game plan happened to line up with what is the most appropriate way to guard the Timberwolves. It doesn't in the next series, so they need to make that adjustment accordingly. And I

think we'll see. And by the way, if he doesn't won game sure, whatever, But like if by game two they're still doing it and the games are more competitive than they should be, that'd be something that I would look at. All right, guys, that's all we have for the YouTube stream tonight. As always, we appreciate you guys for supporting us and supporting the show. We're heading over to playback again. That's playback dot tv slash Oops tonight.

We're gonna hanging out, taking callers and just shooting the shit and having fun talking hoops for a little while. We'll see you guys over there in just a few minutes. What' so, 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. If you could take a minute to do that, I really appreciate it.