The Minnesota Timberwolves lost their third game in a row despite a career night from Anthony Edwards. Join Jack Borman and Luke Inman after the game for the instant reaction and breakdown.
Locked On Wolves - Daily Podcast On The Minnesota Timberwolves
WOLVES POSTCAST: Anthony Edwards 53-Points Not Enough As T-Wolves Lose To Pistons, 119-105
It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This is Corbin Smith from the Lockdown Seahawks podcast. January, are you ready to rock? Set the stage for a killer 2025 with Dave's killer bread. Get the whole grain nutrition and awesome organic ingredients you need to rock your reset. Throughout January, we'll be delivering weekly epic prompt text alerts to our SMS subscribers plus new sign-ups who opt in through the sweepstakes offer to next reset to 73876. Enter for a chance to win three VIP concert price packs. No purchase necessary, visit Dave'skillerbread.com/reset for details. You are Lockdown Wolves Postcast, part of Lockdown, Minnesota, on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. Ants career-high, 53 points not enough as the Wolves fall to Detroit. Final score, 119-105, what's going on back in the lab? Back at it with another T-Wolves Postcast episode right here on the Lockdown Sports Minnesota Network. Your team every day, Jack Borman, with me as always. Give them a follow @jrborman13, Jack, lots to get into tonight, including Ants career-high, 53-point game plus the Wolves just getting bodied down in the paint all night long. But first quick reminder, tonight's episode brought to us by time. Game time, download the Game Time app, create an account, use code LockdownNBA for $20 off your first purchase. That's LockdownNBA for $20 off your first purchase. All right, so Pistons coming in pretty red hot, I would say, winners of five of their last six. No Jade Naivy, as you told us, what was that Thursday night? But Cade Cunningham, he's been a monster, he kind of picked up right where he left off. 40 points for Cade Cunningham. Anthony Edwards, though, says, I'll see your 40, I'll raise you 13 more. Brakes his career-high by two points tonight, puts up 53, all said and done. Not enough, though, not enough because Wolves defense, they just couldn't buy a stop when they needed one. They got down 12 at halftime, they ended up getting down 24 in the third quarter. Credit to them to cutting it back down to about 10 or 11 points, I want to say, going into the fourth. But just not enough, paint points, remind-boggling, 58-34 advantage. Detroit and the Wolves lose their third in a row despite this, again, a career-high night from Anthony Edwards. Just start like we always do, kind of your biggest takeaways and your A-topics first and foremost, Jack. Yeah, I think the Timberwolves seem to make a move of some sort. I just think that this was one of those games where I think the team just looked completely lifeless. And it was one of the least fun, Tim Ruel was games to watch in the last few years for my money. And that's despite Anthony Edwards having a career-high 53 points. I think it's got to be up there for one of the most individual basketball games. I can remember watching in a long, long time, just for context here of just how bad the rest of the starting five was. And really everyone else that played in this game besides Anthony Edwards. Anthony Edwards got to 38 points before any other Timberwolves scored six points. That's insane. Have you ever seen that? You've been watching NBA basketball for your whole life. Have you ever seen that? I can't ever remember seeing that in a game. I think the only other super individual games I can remember on that level were when James Harden and Kyrie Irving were both hurt in that playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks a few years ago, where Kevin Durant just went absolutely bananas for the Nets. And ironically, KD was the guy who held the scoring record at Little Caesar's Arena before Ant Broke tonight. And yeah, I just think that, you know, for that to take place, Rudy Gobert just looks completely checked out on offense. At the start of this game, Anthony Edwards was getting, you know, doubled. They were playing boxes and elbows. This is a very long Detroit Pistons starting five now with a Star Thompson in there. And so the Jay Naivy between, you know, him and Cade Cunningham and Tobias Harris and Jay Linder. And those are all guys with seven foot plus wing spans. And Tim Hardaway Jr, I think is like six four and has got a pretty plus wing span too. So it's just a very long team. And for a team like that that really likes to pack the paint and generally really controls the paint match up in these games, they're just wasn't a whole lot of space for Ant to work. And so early in this game, he was getting off the ball and finding Rudy Gobert on the short roll. Hit Rudy Gobert three different times for opportunities for Rudy to pass. And I have normally been one to praise Rudy Gobert's playmaking. Especially since he got here, he's taken leaps and bounds growth in that area. But he was really poor in this game and has not been very good for the majority of this season in those situations. And, you know, he had three turnovers in the first four or five minutes of this game. You could tell Ant was frustrated. You could tell everyone else was really frustrated. And there just weren't many opportunities for Gobert to score. He didn't create many opportunities for himself to score. And, you know, again, just his inability really to be able to dribble the basketball and just take two dribbles and finish over somebody with either hand that's not a dunk. It's just kind of rearing its head again. And then he'll be in the middle of the floor. No one within three, four or five feet of him. And he still turns it over. And those are things that just, I think, really sucked the air out of the offense when there isn't a whole lot of air to go around considering that the spacing issues that Jade McDaniel's and Julius Randall have also contributed to. And Mike Conley, too, just looks... He does not look like the same Mike Conley we've seen since he arrived in Minnesota. And I think Mike Conley's done a ton of awesome things for this team, for this franchise. He is a wonderful human being. He's probably my favorite professional athlete who I've ever interacted with in a locker room over my last, you know, five, six years covering the Timberwolves and the links. And it's just unfortunate because you want to really root for him and you really want to see him do well and all these guys swear by him and love him as a veteran. But it's just coming to the point where it's hard to... It's hard to make a case for him to be on the floor. So what do you... Let's just say I hand you the keys tonight. You're running the show, you're the GM, you're the coach right now. Are you making a move? Are you pulling the trigger on something or what? Like what's the right play in your mind? What do you want to see? Because we are now 34 games into the season. This is a 500 ball club despite all the talent, all the depth, all the fun, interesting pieces that we've got. And this team just went to the Western Conference Finals. What do you want to see at this point right now? I want to see myself enjoy watching a Timber Wolves basketball game because I enjoy what the Timber Wolves are doing, not necessarily what the other team are doing. You know, if there's any team to lose to for the Wolves, the Pistons are absolutely the team that you want to lose. Because if the Pistons are out of the lottery, then the Wolves get the Pistons' first round pick this year. Which is obviously something that is a good thing for the Wolves. Yeah, if you handed me the keys, I would just, I think I would probably make a trade. And I would probably move on from Julius Randall. And I know that Miami is a team that has had interest in Julius Randall leading up to this season. I think Detroit was funny enough, another team that had interest in him. But I don't know that a game like tonight endures himself too too well, to a team that is flying around and playing really hard and playing really physically and aggressively on the defensive end of the floor. I think Randall could disrupt that a little bit, but they certainly do need more size. No question about that. So I think, you know, I would certainly think the Wolves would try to, you know, at least get in the Zoom call with whatever teams are talking to Miami Heat for Jimmy Butler. And see not necessarily for Jimmy Butler to come back here, but for Julius Randall potentially to be on the move to Miami or, you know, or another team. I think that there's certainly an opportunity for that to happen. And I just think that Temer Wolves right now need to put as much space around Anthony Edwards as they can. And I think that, you know, another opportunity or another option for them would be to lean into Jade McDaniel's being more before than a three. And so, you know, maybe that results in the Temer Wolves. Maybe, you know, trying to acquire a backup five and just have Nas and Jaden be your, be your fours. And, you know, Jeff, by the way, Jeff in the comments, I was not suggesting that the Wolves trade for Jimmy Butler. That was not what I was suggesting. - You just know Miami is interested. - That's where you start as the... - Yeah, just that Miami is interested in Randall. And so maybe you could get in as a third team or a fourth team in one of those trades. So I certainly think that's part of it. And I think, and I think part of it too for the Wolves is just that I think that when you put more spacing around Ant, not only does it help Ant, but it also helps Rudy go bare. And I think that Rudy go bare would probably be a little bit more effective offensively with having a more spaced out defense and being able to crash the glass a little bit easier. And, you know, I think guys be able to find him a little bit more easily in the paint because the passing lanes aren't as clogged with teams just sagging in, playing boxes and elbows, packing the paint. - Right, right. - And I think that that's, you know, also just kind of a byproduct of the spacing issues that the Timmer Wolves have had. And I think too, like when you just look in the other part of it too, the last thing I'll say here, Luke, is just for Ant, Jaden, Nikhil, Nas and Dante to all make their first three in this game. Ant then went 9 of 14, Nikhil went 1 of 6, Nas went 1 of 3, Dante went 1 of 4, and Jaden went 0 of 1. I mean, they all started out high. - Yeah, you got D&D 0 for 4. - So like combine those guys were 3, 4, no excuse me, 2, 4, 14? - The rest of the game. - Brutal. - So it just shaping up to be like, this is going to be a fun game, good game. And it just didn't end up, that was 5th Street, Timmer Wolves. And it was just, I think even more frustrating because Ant was as good as he was, and no one else really joined him. - Last one real quick before we move on to segment two, I know a lot of people that's going to be music to people's ears about, you know, if you had the keys, if you were running the show, moving on from Julius, get some more interesting pieces in the mix. What about the point guard position though? Mike, would you just shelf them for a long extended period of time and say, dude, you don't need to rush back anymore? Let's just get you healthy here, or as healthy as you can possibly get, whatever that looks like, and just give the keys to Dillingham, would you maybe go, you know, every other game and set Mike, would you have them just come off the bench? What's your ideal kind of, we're not doctors. We don't know, you know, his health situation, you know, what the ceiling is, you know, if he would kind of benefit from an extended period of time out, but just knowing what you know, you know, you're around the team, what is the kind of ideal blueprint, I guess, at that point guard position? What the pieces they have right now? - Yeah, it's a really good question, Luke, and I think it's tough. I think you got to honestly look at the Celtics as a team that you can somewhat compare how the Wolves would, you know, should be playing, and obviously it's very tough to just say the Wolves should play like the Celtics, but the Celtics don't really have a true point guard. They just have different guys that can bring the ball up the floor, and they get off it early, and then they all move without the basketball really well. They don't hold the ball, they make quick decisions. It's a lot of what we've seen from, you know, some lineups that the team rules have had, especially that Nikhil Dante, Josh Randall, and Reed, five-some. It's just, it's less about having a point guard and more about just having guys that are going to move the ball, make quick decisions and be able to space the floor and move without the basketball. And I think, you know, your point about finally is a good one, in that we don't really know if it's injury-related something, or if it's just age, or what the case may be is. But I just think the Timmer Wolves need to shake something up, you know, no question about it. And I think when you're looking at the rotation, the easiest way to do that is probably get dilling him in the game, and maybe sit Mike for a couple games and see if you just let Rob Dillingham play 25 minutes, and let Josh Minot play 25 minutes, see what you can do. But again, I just think that the Timmer Wolves would be foolish to continue trying to roll out this same kind of rotation of eight or nine guys and hope that, and hope that things are going to change. It does kind of feel like the definition of insanity a little bit, and I'm sure a lot of people that are in the chat right now, certainly feel the same way that I do, and they're watching these games super closely. It's a lot of the same issues. It's all the same guys playing. It's the same lineups that are having the same issues, and there hasn't been a whole lot of progress outside of the way this team's defense has played. But even that has dipped back down in the last five or six games or so. And again, they give up 41 points in the third quarter, and even when their offense did get rolling tonight, they just couldn't get stops on the defensive end of the floor. So I certainly think that you try to inject some youth into what's going on. But again, there's also an argument for the other side of it, in that the Timmer Wolves are only three games out of the four spot. And the Timmer Wolves are lucky that the Phoenix Suns, after starting nine and two, are now, what are they? They're now six and 16, since starting nine and two. And that they're in the 12th spot, because they're a bigger story than the Wolves are. The Kings have been somewhat of a bigger story than the Wolves have, because they've already fired Mike Brown. But so I think that's the argument why maybe we won't see change, even though I think we absolutely should. And it's just kind of unfortunate, because I feel like Timmer Wolves fans are kind of being gaslit into thinking like, all the starting five is going to work, and it's going to be great. At that point though, I was like, what are you thinking that it was going to be good? And it just hasn't necessarily been that so far this season. Yeah, sorry to interrupt. I was just going to say, at that point though, are you fooling yourselves thinking that, oh, we're only a game or two or this many handful, if we can just get hot. Okay, but then what though? This West is so loaded, so what? So you make the playoffs as a seven or eight season, then you just get bounced in the first round anyways, like coming off the Western Conference Finals, obviously, you know, everybody's ceiling and kind of expectations. We're so high. So anything below that now is going to be a disappointment, but that's just what happens in every sport. You know, when you're coming off such a monster high and a great season like that, we got to jump to segment two, plenty more to dive into. I want to talk about these turnover problems that continue to kill this team. That's all coming up right after this. Quick reminder tonight's episode brought to us by Fandool. Fandool, America is number one. Sportsbook, an official sportsbook partner of the NBA. Right now, Fandool's giving you a chance at a huge return. Best return I've seen all year, $250 in bonus bets. Guaranteed, when you win your first $5 wage or a while, I love Fandool. When you get the hunch in the middle of the game, you can go check out the latest stats. You can view live play-by-play and so much more, all on the same page where you place your bets, again, $250 in bonus bets. Guaranteed, when you win your first $5 wage, or go check it all out over at Fandool.com. Get in on some NBA future action while you're there. Anthony Edwards, MVP Odds, sitting at 20 to 1. Wonder if that'll go up now after his career night. It's all sitting up over at Fandool.com. Again, check it all out over at Fandool.com and get $250 in bonus bets. Guaranteed, when you win your first $5 wage or Fandool, America's number one, sportsbook, and official sportsbook partner of the NBA. This is Corbin Smith from the Lockdown Seahawks podcast. January, are you ready to rock? Set the stage for a killer 2025 with Dave's killer bread. Get the whole grain nutrition and awesome organic ingredients. You need to rock your reset. Throughout January, we'll be delivering weekly epic prompt text alerts to our SMS subscribers, plus new sign-ups who opt in through the sweepstakes offer. To next reset to 73876, enter for a chance to win three VIP concert ice packs. No purchase necessary. Visit Dave's killer bread.com/reset for details. All right, a little more deep dive on this one. Again, turnovers just continue to haunt this team. It is so frustrating to watch. Granted, the wolves, I know you put in your notes, played better transition defense tonight. But what do you make of those two categories, I guess, in what you saw tonight? Yeah, no question about it. The two strengths, really, of these respective teams was Detroit's ability to win in the paint and the Timberwolves ability to win in the three-point line. And Detroit absolutely dominated in the paint. They were up 28 to two and paint points at one point midway through the second quarter. And that just kind of speaks again to the spacing issues that the Timberwolves had because Detroit had three or four guys in the paint one time. And they have a really long rotation. So, you know, the long in terms of their wingspan. And yeah, they ended at 58-34. So plus 24 in the paint. They won 13-7 in offensive rebounds. They won 15 to 6 in second chance points. And the Timberwolves, you know, the Timberwolves six and three-point attempts, fifth and three-point percentage. They won on the three-point line in terms of scoring 48 to 39. So they had 16 made threes. Detroit only had 13. But Detroit's still one that battle, I guess, if you will, the paint scoring differential versus the Timberwolves three-point scoring differential by 13. So that was kind of the game right there, I thought. And then on the fast break coming into this season, or coming into this game on the season, the Pistons 17.1 points per game in transition. That's exactly what they finished with tonight. Seventh in the NBA in transition scoring. They're also top 10 in transition defense and the last five games that just holding opponents just under 14 transition points a game. And they're transition differential plus 1.6 on the season, which is 10. But they're plus five about in the last five games, which is seventh. So they've been getting better in that area and certainly losing Jade and Ivy Hurts with, you know, just how much of an insane athlete he is. But again, they're plus 10 in fast break scoring differential. But again, Detroit probably should have had 25 or 30 fast break points considering the quality of opportunities that they had. And the Timberwolves forced a good amount of turnovers in transition. And so the Timberwolves were one of, if not, the league's best transition defenses in terms of transition defensive rating. Last year, they certainly have fallen off a little bit this year, but I thought their transition defense was pretty good to hold them to only 17 points in that area tonight. And then again, just the turnovers for the Timberwolves continue to be killer. And it's all because guys are holding the ball and trying to do too much and playing isolation and dribbling it off their legs or going up for layups and getting the ball smacked out and having it go off their thighs or dribbling too far into the paint and then jumping. And there's no one to throw it to. And then they turn it over. They had four or five of those tonight. And again, it's just frustrating that so many of these Timberwolves turnovers continue to be live ball turnovers. You certainly want less than 50% of your turnovers to be live ball turnovers. But 12 of the 17 turnovers for the Wolves tonight were live ball turnovers. And those are just creating so many opportunities for Detroit going the other way against cross-match situations where the Timberwolves don't have the right guys guarding pistons on the other end. You sometimes will get Mike buried in the paint on a center and he's forced to foul, things like that. So how about Thompson, by the way, everywhere on Defit? What do you have in unit? Five steals, it was like five for five or something in the first quarter or something like that. He was outstanding as well. Yeah, him and his brother, Ahmed, on the Rockets have just killed the team rules this season. Yeah, he had 10 points on five or five shooting and he had five steals in the first 10 minutes of this ball game. And he finished with 10 points on five or five shooting and he had six steals. So he only had one steal the rest of the game. But he had 10, 10, and six in just, I think his fourth game is the start of the season filling in for Jade and Ivy. And those two twins are absolutely tremendous athletes and are tremendous when it comes to being able to just wreak havoc defensively, force deflections, come away with steals that lead to dunks and transition opportunities the other way and just are right there all over offensive players when you make a mistake or handle the ball weekly around them. So that was certainly, that was certainly a huge factor that jumped out in that play he had at the end of the first half was absolutely insane on the in-bounds pass from Cade that didn't count. But then how about Cade throwing him the off-the-glass rod in the first couple of minutes of the game? Are the Pistons fun? Are the Pistons fun right now? I'm having fun watching the Pistons. Again, it was another game where I had fun watching the other team, not the Timberwolves. Right, that's the problem. Yeah, it is a problem. And it's a problem that that it's happening as much as it has. But just to go back to Ant for some context around Ant to keep it with the fun part of the night for the Wolves, he didn't score for the first four and a half minutes of this game and he had an eight-minute stretch in the fourth quarter where he did not really score. So there were like 12 minutes where he didn't, 12 of his 44 minutes where he did not score. So he essentially scored 53 points in 33 minutes, which was a pretty impressive considering the way that the Pistons were loading up on him. And to see Ant have a huge game with 10 threes was certainly good to see because I think his three-point shooting has fallen off a little bit. Obviously not anything to be concerned about. I think when you're shooting that many threes, you're going to kind of live by the three and die by the three just in terms of the variance that you're going to see from game to game. But certainly great to see Ant get back on the three-point shooting horse because I think until they do make a move and they're going to continue on with this starting lineup, it's just going to be a lot of needing Ant to make catch and shoot threes and dribble off of go-bear screens and shoot threes. So I think it's super encouraging to see Ant find other ways to impact the game when he's not able to get all the way downhill. And even when he did get downhill tonight, I thought he did a great job of drawing contact and getting to the free throw line. He had 12 free throw times, made 11 of them. And yeah, it was just an awesome game from Ant and certainly great to see considering how many mediocre games for his standards he's had. And hopefully this is one of those games that can kind of get him back to feeling like he's felt over the last couple of seasons just with all the swagger and energy that endears him so well to this fan base and why he's such a beloved player. And man, it's just really helped if he could get back to that and rub off some of those vibes on the rest of his teammates and hopefully permeate some semblance of good vibes down the rest of the roster because it's a really hard thing to do, Luke, to have 53 points and to have the game be sort of joyless. And I think it's unfortunate. And I think all of his teammates should kind of be looking in the mirror at how they let that happen. And Rudy Gobeir, I thought, was right there at the top of the list in terms of guys that just looked like they did not want to be out there tonight. And the Tim Roles just can't have that. And I think with how much joy Anthony Edwards kind of radiates, especially when he's got it going, it's just a bummer that none of his teammates were able to kind of find that energy and match it and sustain really strong play for first-ended stretches of time on both ends. Because they had some periods like the second quarter where they stayed in it defensively, the third quarter where they went off offensively. But they just weren't able to string the offense and defense together and hopefully playing with a little bit more joy like they did against Boston and that third fourth quarter the other night. They can find more of that. And I really don't think that having Josh mine out out to an illness should be the difference between those tonight and the other night. But we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. All right, couple minutes left. Let's talk about this Clippers game coming up Monday night. That's all coming up right after this. Quick reminder tonight's episode brought to us by better help. You know, when your schedule, it gets packed with work projects and more. It's so easy to let your priorities start to slip, even when we know what makes us happy. But when you feel like you got no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy, well, they're more important than ever. If you've been thinking about starting therapy, it's time to give better help but try entirely online and designed to be convenient. It's flexible and suited for your schedule. So simple. All's you got to do, you fill out a brief questionnaire. You get matched up with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Never skip therapy day with better help. Go visit betterhelp.com/lockedon today. You're getting 10% off your first month. That's better help h-e-l-p dot com slash lockdown. This is Corbin Smith from the Lockdown Seahawks podcast. January, are you ready to rock? Set the stage for a killer 2025 with Dave's killer bread. Get the whole grain nutrition and awesome organic ingredients. You need to rock your reset. Throughout January, we'll be delivering weekly epic prompt text alerts to our SMS subscribers plus new sign-ups who opt in through the sweepstakes offer. To next reset to 73876, enter for a chance to win three VIP concert price packs. No purchase necessary. Visit Dave's killer bread.com/reset for details. Real quick, wolves clippers Monday night. I saw like they're red hot at home. Winners of 11 of their last 13. But this one's at home for the wolves, right? So back in the backyard at the Target Center, just kind of quickly get us caught up on everything we need to know about this Clippers team and this matchup, I guess, specifically. What do you want to see now after three straight losses? Yeah, I'm curious to see how the fan base is going to receive this team coming home. And I'm curious to see which Clippers team is going to be there. Because, you know, Kawhi is making his season debut tonight in Los Angeles against the Hawks. And the Clippers, I think, have played the wolves twice now. And neither game, they had Norman Powell, who has basically been Paul George reincarnated for the Clippers this season. He was averaging like 24 points a game on 44% shooting from three. And, you know, it was damn near 50, 45, 85 shooting splits. He's been absolutely incredible. And certainly a lot of that has had to do with Kawhi being out and George being gone. So it's been a lot of just hard in and in Norm Powell, and kind of tandem Batman and Robin scoring and leading this offense, kind of around that hard and in Zubotch pick and roll game that has been so effective for Los Angeles this season. And I just think that the Timberwolves are going to really have to stay out of foul trouble. I think that you're really going to need Ant to play defense really, really well, because he's going to be guarding one of those three guys. And I think he's certainly going to have to bring it. And I think if Ant can bring it instead of really strong tone on the defensive end of the floor with Jane McDaniel's. And those two guys can, you know, not necessarily take away, but make life a lot more difficult for two of those three guys that I mentioned. I think the Timberwolves could be in an okay spot. I think that they certainly have the defense to be able to clog the floor when the Clippers get into their bench lineups. And I think it's going to be one of those nights where, you know, that bench triumvirate of Naa and Dante and Naa's are really going to have to outplay a poor Clippers bench. And if they can do that, then it's just a matter of if the bench can build a big enough cushion for when the starters kind of go against one another. And I think if Jane McDaniel's can have a good night scoring the ball or Mike Conley can have a good night scoring the ball, I think that would certainly go a long way. Because, you know, if you're going to have Kawhi Leonard guarding Anthony Edwards and Kawhi Leonard is even remotely close to 100%, he's still one of the best, one of the best ever do it on the defensive end of the floor. So I think that's going to be key. And then again, can the Timberwolves have a quarter where the non-Ant players make more than one shot? Because that is what happened. That is what happened in the second quarter tonight. Ant was four of seven for 13 points. Everyone else was one of 13, 7.6% for two points. So I think everyone else just has to show up and played really, really hard and leave everything out there. Because the way they left Ant out there to dry tonight was a huge bummer. And it was an awesome Ant game. And it's unfortunate that it's not going to be able to be remembered. And as good of a light as some of the other incredible Ant scoring games that we've seen over the course of his career. But yeah, hopefully he continues to stay hot and turn in another dynamite performance, especially as a three-point shooter on Monday against him. Obviously, the Finch presser is going on live right now. We'll catch up with that after we get done here. Is there something specific though as we wrap up last one here that you're hoping to hear from Finch in some of these after, again, another loss now? And just the fashion that they're losing these games. Is there something that you wish you'd come out and say? Is there something or is it more just, you know, actions, right? It's forget about what he says. I don't really care about that. You want to see him go change something, whether it's the lineup stuff, some of their core identity stuff, whatever it may be. I mean, where are you at? I know you love Finch, but there's a lot of frustration right now in the chat. So I'm just wondering where you're at with the Finch meter. And what you just want to see from the coach? Because it does start at the top as well. Yeah, I just want to make it clear that most of my love for Finch is in the way that he handles his relationships with players. And it's not necessarily about some of the things that he does on the court. No question about it. And I think what I would want to hear from Chris Finch is that, you know, he just wants guys to play hard. And if you're not going to play hard, you're not going to play. And I'm going to go down the roster and find someone else that is willing to play hard. And, you know, it's just a bummer that again, that the team looked completely lifeless and they didn't press any other buttons. It was my not was out of the rotation. And my not was a ninth guy and my not didn't play tonight. So they were down to eight guys. And Mike commonly only played, you know, 21 minutes, but really was sitting at 15 before the last six minutes of the game when the game was pretty much already over. So whether that's, you know, playing letter and Miller, who's been amazing for the Iowa Wolves this season or playing, you know, Taryn Shannon. Taryn Shannon, my boy, come on, I'm ready. I'm ready. Let's go. I'm really, I'm really willing to let those guys play through mistakes. That's the only way they're going to get better. As long as they're playing hard. Some real minutes. Totally. Yes. Yes. Look at my not my not. It's been fun. Yeah. Exactly. I generally have no problem with with guys making mistakes, whether it's missing shots, you know, missing a layup, because they're a little out of control or right, you know, being a little overzealous. If you're playing defense and getting called for a foul, if you're just, if you're just playing really hard, you're giving it, you're giving it your all. Sometimes, you know, you kind of got to learn how to harness it, especially when you're a young player. And I think, again, my biggest problem with the Temer Wolves is not that they're 17 and 16. My biggest problem is that the Temer Wolves are 17 and 16 and that poor somewhat, quote unquote, poor record. It just hasn't been in service of any greater common goal. It hasn't been trying to bring Rob Dillingham along. I know he's been hurt, but it hasn't been bringing Rob Dillingham along. It hasn't been trying to find a significant roster spot for a rotation spot for Josh Meinand. It hasn't been trying to expand Jade McDaniel's offensive game and play him in lineups where he's kind of more free to, you know, spread his wings and try to become more of an off the dribble score because the stand in the corner shoot three's experience hasn't been awesome for him. It hasn't been, you know, we're going to really try to just throw a ton more lobs to go bare and try to activate him more above the rim. It hasn't been, you know, playing Dr. David Vincenzo as a starter and really making him a prominent piece of the team and the rotation. I understand that he struggled coming here from New York, but again, or that you have, or that you traded Carl Anthony Town, maybe the biggest one, the traded Carl Anthony Townes to seemingly provide more opportunity to scale up Nas Reed into that starting four spot and he hasn't started once. Yeah, and it's, and he's certainly been a better player than Julius Randall has for more than half the games this season. And it's just unfortunate that you haven't, you haven't served any of those goals or tried to accomplish any of those goals. And you're still here anyways at 17 and 17 now after 30 or what is it? 17, 500, 17 and 17 and 17 after after 34 games. I mean, I asked you after like eight, 10 games and they kind of started slow. I said, okay, let's just say that it looks the same, you know, come January. What, what, what, what do you want to at least like get out of that? And you're like, well, if you tell me they're close to 500, you know, another 25 games from now, I hope it's because they're starting are all the young guys. I mean, you literally said that point blank. And here we are, 17 and 17, 34 games in. And that's just not the case. And I just want to call out one, one question in the chat. So Darrell said, you know, the piece is up. That's already not fit. What is the team's identity? And the whole thing is just, it's supposed to be on the defensive end of the floor, but you have someone like, like Julius Randall was out there. If you just watch him play defense, just only watch Julius Randall when the team's on the defensive end of the floor. And it's even easier when you're actually at the game. And you see how often he like walks or jogs back up the floor after missing a shot, or how he just completely misses a super obvious transition assignment. Like it's three on three. You're very clearly have to pick up this guy and he doesn't pick him up. And then points at the guy like waiting for one of his teammates to do it. The amount of time she doesn't go for a rebound. The amount of time she doesn't pick up all the lifetime. It's just all of those things get my guy. Will you? Yeah, all of those things that this team had done so well. And Carl Anthony Towns, to his credit, did so well for the majority of last season. Just make it all it takes is one super weak link to kind of. You're only as crazy as a guy out there, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah. Especially on the defensive end when, you know, a lot of times Randall's guarding guys that are just kind of, you know, standing in the corner of three point shooters and you know that game against Boston. Houser had probably six or seven wider than wide open threes because Randall just missed defensive assignments. And I think that's what makes it really hard to stick to that defensive identity. If someone like that is playing, you know, 35, 36 minutes a game. And I think defense is unquestionably where the identity needs to be. I think when the teammate, or excuse me, when the team had that structure, they won nine of 13, the defense looked awesome. That was because everyone was playing super hard. And for the most part, Randall was playing a lot harder than he had played at earlier points in the season on the defensive end of the floor. And it's just, it's just not there. And I think that it's a great point. I think the Tim Rules are not built like a football team. The conversation that I was having with, you know, some other guys and you know, just in the media room after that, that Celtics game was like, Celtics are kind of like a football team that builds their roster based on a way that they want to play. Like it's all trying to get scheme fits for Brian Flores on the defensive, defensive end. You know, it's trying to get, trying to get guys that that fit what Kevin O'Connor wants to do as a play caller, things like that. And the Tim Rules right now totally feel like they don't have guys necessarily that want, or not that want, but just they don't have guys that fit the way that the Tim Rules want to play offense. And that's just getting off the ball quickly and moving the ball, setting a bunch of screens on the ball, spotting up, having spacers, cutting off of, you know, cutting off of the pick and roll game. And when you don't have that, it's hard to play to an identity. And I think that's a great point in the fact that again, 34 games for the season seem doesn't really have a whole lot of an identity in coming into this. The Tim Rules on the season or 20th and offense, seventh and defense, 13th and net rating. It's just, there's not a whole lot you can bank on from night to night. And I think that's also really, really frustrating. Yeah, yeah, just real quick, just because it's right on the topic of conversation, Finch was asked in the, in the presser, the postgame presser. If he would change up the starting five, this is from ER 24. As you can see here, if he thought that was the magic bullet, he would have done that already. So unfortunately, as much as we've kind of banged the table tonight to switch things up at this point, get the young guys some minutes, log them some valuable court time. That's the only way they're going to learn and grow. And just try to get a spark. It doesn't feel like we're going to see that anytime soon. We went a little over tonight, but we got to get out of here. Great stuff, man. As always, wolves lose their third in a row despite Ants career high, 53 points. Final versus the Pistons, 119, 105, wolves dropped to 517 and 17. Hey, as always though, huge shout out to all the every dayers, all you guys that always make us your first listen and coming in the chat, venting with us from the game to game. Make sure you subscribe, make sure you like this show. If you haven't already, go follow Jack by the way on X at Jare Borman 13. He's usually live from the Target Center during almost every home game. Again, we got to clippers up Monday night, 7 p.m. tip off. We'll catch you right here. Same time, same place, but until then, signing. A prime member. You can listen to this lock-down podcast, add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.