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you guys are having a great week. Well Luka Doncic in shockingly similar fashion to what he did in twenty twenty two on the road in Phoenix and game seven of the second round series of the Western Conference Playoffs. He rolls up into Minnesota tonight and just from the opening tip, is super aggressive, goes at Minnesota's throat, snatches their soul. Minnesota loses composure, the game completely goes off the rails in the first half, and Dallas is now
advancing to the NBA Finals. We're gonna break down that highly interesting game from the perspective of both teams, get a little bit into Minnesota's offseason, a little bit into a little tiny preview of the NBA Finals. We're not gonna get too deep into it tonight, but we're gonna get into the future for both teams, and then we'll get out of here for the night. You guys are the job before we get started it. Subscribe to the Hoops and O YouTube channel so you don't miss any
more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore jcnlts you guys, don't miss sho announcements, don't forget our podcast feed where you get your podcasts under Hoops tonight, and the last, but not least, drop mail bag questions in this video. We are going to record a long mail bag tomorrow so that we have content to run through the weekend before we get into the series preview stuff on Monday. So drop your mailbag questions in this video.
All right, let's talk some basketball. So one of my favorite things about the game of basketball is there's an inherent unpredictability to it. That statement that I always use that I stole from Mark Titus, right, like basketball is more art than science. I've been waiting for someone to articulate the way I feel about it for a long time, and Mark did it so well. And what that means to me is like, no matter how hard you try,
you can't solve the game of basketball. There's no way to like parse it down to a number to add predictability, or to make decision making easy for front offices or for coaching stabs or anything along those lines. Right, there's an inherent kind of like unsolvability to the game. Right. I'm not against people trying to. I think you should if you're not, If you're not trying to solve the game by employing the smartest analytical professionals, the analytics professionals
that exist in the world. If you're not trying, then you're wasting a competitive advantage. You should be trying, but it's a hopeless task at the end of the day in terms of actually perfecting that. And the reason why is, how do you account for what Luka Doncic did tonight? How do you account for the fact that he walked into Minnesota and snatched their soul and then Minnesota just completely decomposed and forgot how to play basketball. I talk
about belief being a very important thing in basketball. What that means to me is it's hard to play defense at a championship level. To chase over the top of screens, to apply back pressure, to tag the roller and recover out, to get a body on someone on a box out. There's a level of commitment that is really difficult to get to to at a championship level. That's why so few teams do it every single year, right and in order to push yourself in that way, to really exert
yourself when there's nothing left in the tank. You have to believe that you can get to the Larry O'Brien Trophy. And then when a team loses belief, all those little extra efforts, all that little bit of physicality and fight that's there, when they can see the trophy and believe in their ability to get there, that goes out the window.
And then all of a sudden, you're not making those extra efforts, you're not focusing, and you're not as disciplined, and you're not paying as much attention to the detail as you typically do, and things can go off the rails. What happens tonight is Luca went into that arena and from the opening tip tried to sap the Minnesota Timberwolves of their belief that they could win that game, let alone that series. Right, Like, I had this game as
more or less a coin flip. I think I had a fifty five to forty five that Dallas would win. But Game six was the tough one, right, is the one that you're like, you really don't think Minnesota can go in there and get it done right, especially in
a desperate type of environment for Dallas. But Luca snatched them of their belief tonight on their home floor, like what just happened in the last series when we saw a similar type of sequence of events, like Minnesota goes home in game six and just as a buzz sad just runs through Denver, what were they up like forty five? At one point, that was what Minnesota looked like at home facing elimination last time, and Luca did not allow that to happen. I thought it was abundantly clear from
the opening tip. The first play of the game was a little backscreen set designed to get Luka Doncic switched on to Mike Conley in the post. It was a play designed to get Luca to shoot. He immediately got the switch, took Conley down to the block, a little pound dribble into the lane, went to a left shoulder hook, and Gobert goaltended it. Very next possession, he took a catch and shoot thirty foot three and hit it in Anthony Edwards's face. Thirty foot catch and shoot three. That's
not a good shot. That's a I'm trying to snatch your soul shot, and he made it. Two possessions later, another step back thirty footer and a ball screen against Anthony Edwards two possessions later, straight iso of Jaden McDaniels hits a step back eighteen footer going to his right. He went at their throats early to make sure they knew that they couldn't win this game. He had twenty of their first thirty points. He single handedly outscored the
Timberwolves in the first quarter. It was a completely transparent effort to sap his opponent of belief, and it worked. The Wolves had nine turnovers in the first half. They shot thirty four percent from the field. They were two for twelve from three. Everyone looked shook. That's what he does, and it's a two way impact because at the same time, it infuses your own team with belief. All of a sudden PJ. Washington, Daniel Gafford, Darre Jones Jr. All these
guys go, We're getting this done tonight. Stay locked in. We're getting this done. There was a play where in the first quar stretch where where Luca hit a bucket and the camera zooms in on Luca talking to Gafford on the other end of the floor. It was the pass where Luca tried to throw the lob to Gafford and Gafford missed it and went off the glass, but it somehow ended up in Gafferd's hands and he dunked it. On that play, the camera catches Luca. He's in Gafford's ears.
Gafford's laughing about what happened, and Luca goes, let's get a stop because Luke is keeping it's It's a two way effect. He is destroying the entire confidence and belief of the Minnesota Timberwolves while infusing his team with an unwavering faith that they're going to get it done. And that just manifested everything for his team, all the role
players playing with confidence. They shoot sixty percent from the field and sixty from three in the first half, and it turned into a route before before we even went to the locker rooms. I just want to tip the cap to Luka Doncic because after Jokic got eliminated in rather disappointing fashion in the last round, he showed some decline both as a jump shooter and as a defensive player. That best Player in the World title was just sitting there to be grabbed, and Luca is grabbing that title
and leaving absolutely no doubt. He took the defense that shut down the Denver Nuggets and completely eviscerated it. If he can go into Boston and outplay Tatum to this type of extent, we're talking about a pretty special playoff
run here. I'm very, very excited to watch Luka Doncic on that NBA Final stage, and I think it's gonna be an interesting challenge that the next layer of this, right, Like remember those quotes from Lebron James, who the playoff run last year, as he was trying to help his young team get through, He's like, it always gets harder, no matter what. It just it just gets harder the next round, no matter what you think it's gonna be, like,
it just gets harder, and Boston's gonna be harder. Boston has more talent on both ends of the floor than Dallas does. But Luca's the best player in the series, and he has the biggest advantage for either team in the half court, and so I think he's going to need to have a similar impact on Boston that he had on Minnesota tonight. This is a Boston team that can get discombobulated from time to time and play really
bad basketball for stretches. If Luca can dominate the game, especially mentally, to the point where Boston kind of loses composure. That's their best pathway, and he's gonna have the advantages to do it. He has similar size advantages against Boston's perimeter defenders, basically everybody but Tatum. He has similar size advantages that he had against Jaden McDaniels. Drew Holidays a big, strong guard, but he's not quite as big and strong as lou Dort. It was big and strong enough to
cause Lucas some issues, right. I barely started digging into some film earlier this week, and I was watching the game that Dallas played in Boston, and the very first play of the game, Jalen Brown's guarding Luca simple guard guard screen to get Drew Holliday switched on to Luca.
Luca goes into a screen Drew Holiday's trailing. The play kind of gets onto Luca's side, into that like sidecar jail that I keep talking about, right, and he just meanders into the lane baits poorzingis into recovering back, and he just shoots a little easy floater over the top of Drew Holiday into the basket. That's the type of advantage that he's going to continue to have going into the next round, and he's going to need to continue to exploit that he is the guy that can flip
the script and get PJ. Washington and get all these guys to play confidently. Kyrie can meet his level and try to get Boston to kind of to lose that belief. I'm super excited for that challenge. You know again, like, if you can pull that off, that starts to make this look like because he struggled in the first couple of rounds, but obviously he was dealing with the knee injury. Doing what he did to this Minnesota team. If he can somehow continue that and beat Boston, that's a pretty
special playoff run in NBA history. I want to shout out Kyrie Irving. He met Luca's level tonight. There was a level of there was a level of difficult shot making that he hit against Nikhil Alexander Walker on those like short pull up jumpers, that crazy floating finish he had over Rudy Gobert, like he added to the assault on the confidence of the Minnesota Timberwolves by him meeting Luca's level tonight. I thought he was incredible. A little bit of a preview for you guys on the schedule
for our Finals preview stuff. So again, I'm gonna be doing a mail bag tomorrow. The whole thing will air tomorrow, will run breakouts on Saturday and Sunday. Monday morning, I'm gonna focus on just one end of the floor. It'll either be Boston on offense or Dallas on offense. Tuesday morning is gonna be an entirely separate video focusing on the other end of the floor. So we're gonna go really deep with film sessions on both teams on either
end of the floor Monday Tuesday. We have the Nerd Sessh guys coming on Wednesday morning, and then I have Sam Vessini from the Athletic coming on Wednesday afternoon. So we're gonna have just a ton of Finals preview content coming out over the course of the beginning of next week.
Looking forward to getting into it. Before we move on for the night, I want to talk a little bit about the Minnesota Timberwolves, and I don't want to get too deep into all the different ramifications, but I just want to talk about the one thing that stood out to me in this series. I've been pretty optimistic about the Rudy Gobert build. Right, You guys have been listening to the show for a while, know what I'm talking
about here, Like Anthony Edwards, Jada McDaniels, Rudy Gobert. The concept of elite rim protection and elite perimeter defense is very exciting to me. You guys are seeing a version of that with the Dallas Mavericks right now with dearre Jones Junior at the point and Lively and Gafford on the back line, right, and just how impactful that can
be in the NBA playoffs. But one of the fundamental differences between Luka Dancic operating in that type of build and Anthony Edwards operating in that type of build is Luca is a master manipulator of the half court. It's like a natural ability, Right, I've been talking about this forever, but like there is a short list of guys that I think have that natural passing ability. Like there's so much of it that you can work out through repetition and just seeing getting tons and tons of reps in
the half court. And then there's another element to it that is just kind of you. You're born with it. Right, Luca is born with it, Jokic is born with it, Lebron's born with it, Chris Paul is born with it. There's a short list of guys that kind of have
that just natural playmaking ability, and Luca does so. When Luca runs up against Rudy Gobert on the back line and has a non shooter and Daniel Gafford or Derek Lively rolling to the basket, He's comfortable getting the defender into jail, methodically working into the lane, waiting for guys to commit and debate, bait, help defenders into making the wrong decision, or just making a read based on what
decision they make. That's what Luca can do. I think Anthony Edwards can get better at that, but I'm I'm worried that he doesn't have the natural playmaking ability to be able to play in that type of closed off environment. And so when I think about the Go Beart build, like when I watch that series, there's a lot of different stuff that happened, right, And Like, obviously it was a problem that Minnesota, like Jada McDaniels, is too small
for Luca, right, Like that's a problem. There's lots of problems that took place in this series on both ends of the floor. But the main one that stood out to me in this series was that with go Bear on the floor and his inability to catch and finish consistently around the basket unless it is a completely uncontested dunk, I'm worried that it's not going to be able to get to the point where he can consistently solve this type of defense. Because again, when you get into the postseason,
it's not winning one round, it's not winning too. You got to have four rounds in two months. You have to beat four different elite basketball teams four times out of seven, and so you might make it to the conference finals if you catch some favorable matchups. That's happened a lot over the years, right, Like that Laker team last year with Lebron's injured foot, they made the conference finals. I came into the season putting them beneath the top
tier of contenders. Why because I thought they were a conference finalist that clearly had a gaping hole in their perimeter athleticism, and I did not think they were good enough unless they made some substantial trade this year, which they did it. Right, That's exactly how I feel about this Minnesota Timberwolves team. You made it to the finals. Congratulations, you beat the defending champs. So did the Lakers last
year they beat the defending champs. The difference is for this particular team, you fought again or you faced Yusuf Nurkic and Nicole Jokic in those first two rounds. They did not have the personnel to keep Anthony Edwards out of the paint, and because of that, Anthony Edwards picked him pieces and looked like a bona fide top tier superstar for two rounds, and then they ran into real
rim protection in perimeter athleticism with Dallas. One of the things that is just about guaranteed to happen when you have to beat four teams in two months. If you have to beat four teams, at least one, if not two, maybe three, maybe four of them are gonna have perimeterive athleticism and a guy who can protect the rim. There are a lot of those teams in the Western Conference. Guess what Oklahoma City has chet Holmgrin. He'll be parking
his ass in the paint in the entire game. The Lakers have Anthony Davis, He'll be parking his ass in the paint as much as he can over the course of the series. The Dallas Mavericks have Derek Lively. There are rim protectors in that conference, and that problem is not going away. Like next year, when you get into that Western Conference playoff picture, chances are you'll have to
face another one. And so like when I look at that, the biggest thing that kind of screamed off the screen for me is you have to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your star. Anthony Edwards is a lot like the elite two guards that came before him, just like Kobe and MJ. Kobe and MJ, over the course of their careers became good playmakers, but they never became that magic Johnson, you know, Lebron James, Nikole Jokis, Lukadancic type
of like surgical playmaker, right. So, like that's the reality for Anthony Edwards. His game is going to be predicated on pull up shooting, in the ability to get to the rim in some moderate playmaking. That's gonna be his game. As he gets better, I think he could become an elite pull up shooter. I think he could become one of the best pain attackers in the league. Do I think he's a guy who could average tennisis for an
NBA season. No, Luca can operate with non shooters on the floor because he's that type of half court manipulator. I just think it's when I look at this Minnesota roster build, I don't think that Minnesota can win four playoff rounds with Rudy Gobert on the roster. It's just eventually they're going to run into a team where he's too much of a non threat offensively. And I look, I think that go Bear Slander's gone off the rails in this postseason in the sense that like a lot
of people are acting like you can't play. There's been calls for him to come off the bench, But like he's still a top five to seven defender in the world. That's not the issue for me. He's still a net positive. It's just can you beat the best of the best with a non shooter and a non finisher like Rudy
Gobert on your team? And so my I wonder if the future for Minnesota, if it looks more like a perimeter defense focused team than an interior defense focused team, you can counter a lack of rim protection with perimeter defense.
That's a big part of what made Denver successful last year, right, Like just Aaron Gordon was unbelievable on Kevin Durant, he was unbelievable on Lebron James, he was unbelievable on Jimmy Butler, and that was enough for them to kind of contain and with KCP out there enough for them to contain on the perimeter well enough, and Jokic was active with his hands and they dominated the defensive glass. You can win without rim protection. Denver showed us that last year.
It's rare. It's rare to win without elite interior defense. But again, Gobert specifically so weak offensively. That's very different than some of the rim protection that we've seen in years past from teams that win it right. Brook Lopez
in twenty twenty one can shoot the basketball right. Draymond Green for the twenty twenty two Warriors is a good offensive player because of his ability to be a connective piece, and he can be if Steph gets blitzed, Draymond catches on the role and makes a play every single time. That's different twenty twenty one Brook Lopez twenty twenty, it's Anthony freaking davis Man. Twenty nineteen, it's Marcus Sahl or
Serge Ibaka. Like if you go back, it's it's you know, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green in twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen, it's Kevin Love, you know. Twenty fifteen, it's Draymond Green again. Twenty fourteen, it's it's Tim Duncan, twenty thirteen, it's Chris Bosh. You You can't have a complete non threat at center and win the title. I don't think
it's possible. And it's like, especially for a guy like Anthony Edwards whose game is predicated on applying rim pressure and Dallas was able to just shut the rim off from him in this series, I don't know what they do. Gobert is gonna be a really difficult contract to to trade. I almost think he has to play for an elite playmaker. He's gonna have to be on that type of team. I don't know if he can. I don't know if Maybe it's like he'd be an interesting fit in the
long run into place like Indiana alongside Tyre's Halliburton. But it's gonna have to be alongside that level of playmaker in order for that fit to make sense. And so then I start to think, well, if Karl Anthony Towns is your full time center at that point, you keep Nazried as your backup center, or you have a two big look if you want, then I'm looking for a power forward that can defend and shoot the hell out of the basketball. I'm looking for a better version of
Kyle Anderson. They have to somehow try to try to turn Rudy Gobert into a much better version of Kyle Anderson.
Maybe they can get a Jeremy Grant. Maybe that's the kind of guy they can go after this summer, because then if you have Jeremy Grant, Jada McDaniels, Anthony Edwards, Conley, Carl Anthony Towns, with Nazried off the bench to kill Alexander Walk off the bench, whatever it is, then you can defend on the perimeter and you have matchup versatility in the later rounds of the playoffs to be able to use Anthony Edwards's best trait consistently regardless of matchup.
I just that's screen off the screen for me, all series, for all the good go Beart did, and Gobart had some real good moments. I just just Dallas it Dallas every time they really needed to, could slow down that Minnesota offense. And so I think that's gonna be a problem they're gonna have to address. I doubt they will. I doubt they'll do anything. I bet you they run
it back. But if they run it back, just like if all you have to do is pull up the Western Conference standings and go down the list and look at the rim protection. That's great that you managed to play Phoenix, and that's great that you managed to play Denver. But like O, Gooma City has Chet. You know, the Dallas Mavericks have Derek Livey, the Lakers have Anthony Davis. Even with the Golden State Warriors with Draymond Green. It's
just I don't know. I don't know how you can how you can survive those types of matchups of go bear on the floor offensively. All right, guys, that is all I have for tonight. As always, as sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. Like I said, we
got a mail bag coming out tomorrow. After the mail bag, we'll get into the series previous stuff starting next week on Monday, I want to talk a little bit more about Anthony Edwards, but we didn't get to it tonight, so we'll get into some Anthony Edwards stuff in the mail bag tomorrow. The volume