Welcome into NBA Culster production of iHeartRadio in the NBA. I'm sarahcu Stock, NBA analyst for the Yes Network, and today is Monday, Remember twentieth. From our extraordinary core group of NBA journalists. We're joined now by NBA dot Com senior writer John Schumann, and Shoe's Power rankings are out for the week and we are rolling in the season.
End of November is I have said thanksgivings on the way, and we have had some very stuff stats from a handful of these teams, in particular on the defensive end. The number one team, the Boston Celtics jump up from number four, Minnesota Timberwolves remain at number two, Philadelphia seventy six ers at number three, the Nuggets at four, Oklahoma City Thunder at five, and Shoe, I want to start with those Minnesota Timberwolves, number one in the West nine
to three record. They currently sit third in defensive ranking and that's where they have had a lot of their dominant and Anthony Edwards has been tremendous as you watch what he's doing throughout the course of the season, averaging twenty six points, nearly six rebounds, five assiss thirty nine from three on almost seven attempts.
Edwards denied on the baseline. But they're to go right back to its mid rat He's got everything. He's got the entire fas.
Yeah, Karl Anthony Towns twenty two points nine rebounds. It feels like they're they're really finding their fit and finding their groove. When you when you look at the Timberwolves and you've watched them at this early part of the season, what do you like about the way that they have been playing?
Well, Obviously it starts with defense. You know, they had the number one defense in the league until they played the second game of a back to back, you know, last week against Phoenix, and they got clobberd in that game, and so their defense sunk a little bit. But you sort of take away that second game of a back to back, and you know, they probably have the number
one defense in the league. And obviously Rudy Gobert is, you know, just like an automatic top ten defense in the regular season, just the way his presence inside, how huge he is, his rebounding, his shot blocking. But you know, it takes more than one guy, you know, to be this good defensively, and I think they've really come together. They just they're they're really big, Like you know, size matters, and even if Carl Anthony Towns isn't the swiftest defender
in the league, he's still big. Anthony Edwards is huge for a for a shooting guard. Jaden McDaniels is just, you know, long, wiry and incredibly active on that end of the floor. That's a lot of good defenders, and I think their offense is coming along. You know, it hasn't been great. It's it ranks fourteenth, but Carl Anthony Towns is starting to find his groove a little bit. He's in their three games last week, he averaged twenty nine points.
You got to have any Towns heard out front handle out dorthy.
Towns is in a great job tonight at setting up Rudy Goldbers. He's actually seen like a small jump in usage rate from last season, so he hasn't got a sort of gotten lost in the Anthony Edwards, you know, come up. You know, Edwards fouled out at the end of their game in New Orleans on Saturday, and Town's got the ball and put up a nice little sort of deft runner off the glass to win the game.
Now watch by day, gonna drive to the ramp, books it up, awkwin do for two booms on the top five point two to go.
So I think that's maybe the most encouraging thing that he's starting to find his offense and sort of, you know, make the most of his talent on that end of the floor.
When you talk about this group fitting together and just kind of you know, I think there's always been so much attention on the Gobert Karl Anthony Towns fit. The ascendants of Anthony Edwards has been terrific to watch. We saw throughout the course of the summer, in the postseason last year, and just how he's felt like he's been so ahead of schedule. Do you think though, as I mentioned, they're sitting right now early part of the season tops in the Western Conference.
But do you think this is sustainable play for them?
Do you think that they can feasibly be a top four seed in the Western Conference when all is said and done with home court advantage and have a real chance at contention for sure?
Yeah, I think so. I mean mostly because some of the other you know, contenders in the West haven't been great as far as you know. Golden state, the Lakers have been up and down. You know, Phoenix is off to a slow start and is not going to have a healthy star trio for another few weeks at least, So I think, yeah, the opportunity is obviously there. Denver is you know, obviously going to be the sort of
favorite in the West. But I think Minnesota, Oklahoma City, which we'll talk about in a little bit, can can
can be right there. You know, Minnesota, it's now or never because there's no way they can sort of keep this roster together with all the salaries going and the fact that they have you know, I think three other five best players or five highest paid players or centers might be five or six, but like for now, you know, one one note is that the minutes with nas Red on the floor with one of the other two bigs have been really good, and those minutes were really bad
last year, and so that's encouraging. So like when they when they re signed Nasrid this summer, I was like, well, you know, they have three centers and and you can't really put two of them on the floor together because you know, the Gobert Towns minutes weren't great last year. And then the read minutes with either of those guys were pretty bad. But that's sort of flipped on its head this season, which is encouraging.
All Right, you teat us up for another surprise team in the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder currently sitting at number two in the West, as we have mentioned, number five in your power rankings.
And they have been They've been a fun watch.
I mean, there's a lot of teams finding success and I will find the Thunder on League Pass any chance I can get.
Shake Gilds.
Alexander put him in an MVP conversation, Jalen Williams, I think jumped out and really opened up a lot of eyes last season how he's been playing. But the guy that we had been waiting on was chet Holmgrid and he has looked absolutely terrific. In a overtime win against Golden State on Saturday night, he had thirty six points.
Throughout the course of this way two wins against the Warriors.
Shot to tiched Holgren.
What the three the buzzer ties one.
Seventeen days smacked San Antonio and then Portland yesterday.
Uh, the Oklahoma City Thunder Shoot.
Let's let's first start with chet Holmgren because I think some of these other players, you know, the fit of John Skiddy, Lou Dor's, all of that. They've come together in a really nice way under Mark Dagnolt. But but what has has Chet Holmgren's shown you this season that maybe you didn't anticipate him walking into the league and looking like coming back from injury.
I guess it says polish offensively. I mean, there are one hundred and thirty eight players who've taken at least one hundred shots from the field this season, and check Holmgren has the highest two shooting percentage among those one hundred and thirty eight. He shot sixty two pointers, six percent from three point range, and he's ninety one percent
from the line. I mean, so he's having an overall, he's having a fifty to forty ninety season, you know, through fifteen percent of the season, with fifteen percent of the season over.
He mentioned his whole bridge, but three eighty.
Kids, that's pretty amazing for a rookie, you know, whether or not he had you know, a year around the team or not.
You know, like.
That's incredible, and you know, no matter how big he is, you know, when Victor Webbin Yama is bigger and not shooting nearly as well, especially from the outside. So yeah, he's amazing and he obviously makes it impact defensively. You know, the thunder have have won seven of the last eight games and they have been the league's number one defense over that stretch. Now, you know, it's helped that they've got to play you know, the Spurs and the Blazers.
But you know, two wins over the Warriors is is pretty good too. And I mean the end of that overtime went over the Warriors was just amazing to see, like Shake Gils Alexander just basically iso against whatever defender was in front of him and go to take him to school. You know, like he went one on one
with Chris Paul, his mentor and friend. He went, you know, he tried to get switches on with on the lesser defenders, but there was one where you know, Andrew Wiggins stuck with him and he's like all right, you know, and he toasted him too.
Shake Gildas Alexander gets into the lane with a.
Fame and made another one third field goal at ot.
I mean, he's absolutely phenomenal. The facts. You know, I think this team has a real identity where the offense is, you know, you know, Shake Guilds is Alexander plus just a lot of strong pieces around him. And then defensively is where they've been strong, like when they've made runs in previous seasons. You know, they obviously haven't made the playoffs with this group, but they've had some strong stretches
and it's usually been about their defense. They also got Kendrick Kenrich Williams back this week and he's a really key role player for them. So their whole and you know, Sky's the limit. You know, it's amazing, you know how well they've done, but they've done it against good opponents too.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't want to overlook Shay's knight that night when I mentioned in Homegrown having thirty six and ten SGA had forty points, seven rebounds, six assists. To talk about those clutch plays down the stretch, and you mentioned being around a team we don't want the whole t shirt back and forth of the Donovan Mitchell Ben Simmons
work of the year. But when you're talking about chet Holmgren, I think so many of us looked at Victor Wembinyama, how he's come out of the gates, what he's looked like in terms of the Rookie of the year conversation, Do you think this could be a nice little race here early on? We're seeing it, but between Chet and Victor for sure.
And I throw Asar Thompson's name in there too. He's been fantastic for the Pistons, not in regard to everything but shooting basically, you know, he's a monster defensively, He's a monster on the glass. I had a stat last week that he basically had the highest rebounding percentage for a player who was six six or shorter in the last I forget what it was, it was more than
ten years. Like the last person who was that short and had a higher rebounding percentage was Chuck Hayes and that was a long long time ago when he was the six to sixth center for the Rockets. So I'll throw his name in there too. And yeah, I mean I think right now, if I had a you know, if I was voting right now, I'd probably go home brun number one, just because of one the efficiency and to the team success.
Yeah, it'll be fun to continue tracking, but the impressive nature of all of these players and how they're doing it and translating to wins has been tremendous. Not a surprise team, but they jumped out and certainly gave a show last season. The Sacramento Kings have Deer and Fox back and they're getting back on track.
We'll talk to them right off to the break. Welcome back to the NBA call Sarahustak, John Human.
We are talking shoes Power rankings for the week and getting into the Sacramento Kings, who have jumped up to number seven from seventeen last week weeks. They have six straight wins, including a win last night at Dallas one nine point thirteen against the Mavericks, who've been playing really well.
Sacramento has won sixth straight. They've had Deer and Fox back for four games and in those four games, the number one rated offense in the stretch, number eight defense, which is, you know, an area that you kind of look how they can improve on. That into the floor in terms of really making themselves a title contender too. When you look at the Kings now with Deer and Fox back, a little bit of a rocky start to the season, but part of that was missing their point guard.
What have they shown you with Fox back in the lineup. It gives you reason for optimism to continue on the trajectory we saw throughout the course of last season with this group.
Yeah, I think it's number one. It's their offense is just so much better with a healthy point guard. And I think that's one about him, but two also about the guys who were on the floor when when he's not. You know, you know, Davion Mitchell and Kean Ellis have basically been their point guards. And while both of those guys are solid defensively, you know, that's a huge, huge
drop off on the offensive end of the floor. So they they've scored one hundred and twenty two points per one hundred possessions in the seven games that Fox has played in just one hundred and four per one hundred and the five he's missed, he's averaged thirty two point three Over these four games since he's come back, they're now six and one with him in the lineup, and this six game winning streak has included four wins over
teams that also have winning records right now. Okay, see Cleveland, the Lakers, and the MAVs, as you mentioned, And also I think you know their offense was great last year. You know, they had the number one offense in the league last year, but their defense was not. And I think we're starting to see some some hints of improved defense.
You know, at this early in the season, you can look at teams that have improved defensively and you might just see, you know, while their opponents haven't shot well from three point range, or they've played some bad teams. But I think there's some hints in the number is like, you know, their paint defense is better. You know, they're not fouling as much. That hint to that. You know,
maybe there's some legit improvement defensively. Now. You know, they're not gonna be I don't think a top ten defense, but if they're out of the top ten and could be around league average and match that with a top you know five offense, then then you've got something real. I mean, that's basically what the Nuggets were last year, you know, top five offense, league average defense, and then they sort of turned up the defense when the games counted.
So yeah, I think I think it's encouraging. You know, obviously the offense is is what it is, but I think there's also a little bit of encouragement on the other end of the floor that can make this team a little a more complete, complete team overall.
Yeah, And I think I was out there for for their media day doing some work, sitting down with the with a lot of these individ jewels Dr Fox, Bonus, you know, even Harrison Barnes, a Keigan Murray. I think they have a group that took a lot at the last season and has a really good chemistry and obviously just understanding what Mike Brown is asking of them. But
it feels like the attention now has taken there. There was a lot of anticipation to start the season, a lot of attention on them how they were going to follow things up of course that first round seven game series against the Warriors and how that played out, but the expectations of this season, and I think some of that attention has shifted a little bit with how the Timberwolves have been played Oklahoma City's We talked about it, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing for them,
And a lot of that, too, is in part of Fox being out and then hitting a little bit of struggles. But it feels like now having watched even you know, watching some of that Dallas game last night, it feels like a lot of the things that you saw that found them success last year they're starting to get back to and doing so just with an added level of experience, and I think Keigan Murray's is a key part of that and how he continues to grow and develop.
Yeah, my only doubts with them this year, and there's sort of their ability to remain a top three or four team in the West was just about health because they were so healthy last year where their top five guys barely missed any games, and that just doesn't seem like possible to do over a second straight year. So that was my worry. And of course you know, obviously Fox, you know, missed five games and so you know, we've
already seen it and the effect. And obviously with him, I think, like as I mentioned, like he is super super valuable just because they don't have anybody else who can replicate to any degree, you know, what he does.
Yeah, and how they want to play some of that.
Much of that comes down to his style of play in commanding the offense too. As always, we appreciate your time. We will continue to track your power rankings. For the week and look forward to reading all your stuff and thank you for those rankings.
We need you to get some.
Sleep, no, all right, Sarah.
Thanks.
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