Oh man, let's get into it. This is what I hope you guys have been hanging around waiting for. The Timberwolves, who defeated the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, 1-16, 1-13 in glorious fashion, positioned Anthony Edwards as one of the true superstars of the league. Candid Timberwolves, make a run to the NBA finals this postseason, and on the flip side the Lakers, man.
What is the biggest issue holding the Lakers back in this series? And I gotta say this, I'm glad you put this on here. This past Sunday, and I put this in the chat, JJ Redis decision to play only his starters for the entire second half had been seen since the start of the play by play era around 1997 and 1998, and it also resulted in the loss. Imagine you're not sitting to have this to say, I don't know if it was smart to play LeBron and Luca the entire second half after only having one day of rest between game three to game four.
When we needed LeBron to take over in the fourth quarter, he couldn't. He scored zero points in the fourth quarter, not only that, he had a very, very crucial turnover, and then he took a hero shot as well. So, what's that you guys? What's that you thinking?
What's that? What's that? What's that? I was getting out the way quickly.
All of the criticism that he's received from playing the five guys for the majority of the quarter, all of the quarters. It makes sense. Because everybody went into this like, all you just a podcast do, you LeBron, that's why you got this job. And for him to play them, and then we see how tired Luca was, how tired LeBron was throughout the, these four quarters.
It's like, bro, you're not even coach. And I don't know if that's going, I don't know if that's, that goes to like, for him being a coach down the line, but right now, you're not a good coach. And you're the reason that we lost his game. So, I was going to tell one of the people got to say, kid, I would say my comments after people go, but go ahead, show.
It's just proving that we overestimated what JJ brought to the table. And, you know, we talk about in-game adjustments. You know, regular season is one thing, but we all know that the playoffs is a totally different beast. And we're seeing that he ain't exactly what we thought he was, as well as the fact that like, like, we talked about early, you know, and I put LeBron on watch early this year.
And I understand, and I saw what somebody said this too, and I'm going to say this same point. They said, hey, you know, LeBron plays well. It's like, man, I can't believe he's doing all this, he's 40 years old. But when he plays bad, it's like, come on, man, he's 40.
You know, it's got like, you want to have it both ways. And I get it, I get why people doing that. But at the same time, I put him on watch because I felt like this is closer to LeBron that we are at now at this point than the one that was just dominating early. So go ahead.
Can I ask you one question? You mentioned one name, but you didn't mention another name, so you put this all on LeBron? No, no, no, I was going to get him too. No, no, no, I went to look at Luke.
Does not get a pass in this, even. Um, they brought Luke in at this point to basically take over and be the man and lead this team and galvanize it. At this point, Lucas is not doing what I feel like Lucas should be doing, which is, you should be making sure that you get everybody involved and elevating the player the ones around you. You did it in Dallas.
You need to be doing it here. He's not doing that either. So I think this is a pre-headed monster. We're going to talk about others because they ain't doing what they're supposed to either.
But this is the head of monster. Right. This is the head of monster. They're all at fault.
All three of them. You can look at JJ. You can look at LeBron and you can look at Lucas. I was just talking about AR 15.
Oh, he's a big shot in the fourth quarter. He's like a last shot. Gay. He gave him the lead in the shot though.
And he's not supposed to be taking that shot though. Yeah. Yeah. He wasn't expecting to get the ball.
So he got that. That was a hot potato. Yeah. He's a big ass three.
That's the playoffs though. You're saying when you get the opportunities, you got to knock them down. He was. But yeah.
That wasn't this that wasn't this spot to be in. We know that was that was Austin. Yeah. That was Austin.
They got that big at least. Oh, as AR being one of the others, I just the hand and show up at least two games. He's had moments when he hasn't had an imprint on any one of these games. When we're slicing up the pie, to me, JJ, look at the biggest slices.
LeBron is still one of the leaders on that team. So he gets it as well. However, I didn't know this I just saw this today. He leads all players in the playoffs where the individual defensive rating.
So that's crazy. crazy to be at 40 and so you know having the impact on the game. That being said, JJ gets the biggest piece of the pie when it comes to the series. We see them have great coaching stretches in the regular season, but the in game adjustments is what separates the legends from the guys that just gets to the playoffs.
You know what I'm saying? And right now it is his rookie season. I will shoot him a little bit of bail, but it don't look good. And here's the thing in all honesty, the difference in this game, and I feel that the Lakers aren't getting the same type of calls that the wolves are getting right now, but the difference is is and Edwards and Edwards is like, go money said.
I think it was going money or somebody I was listening to and I 100% agree. He's the dragon slayer right now. He went and cut KD last year talking all types of shit in his face. He's over here again, super physical with LeBron this year.
You know what I'm saying? Honestly, I know I picked the Lakers, but I want the wolves to win. I want them to go play go to state. I want them to go play go to state.
So I can see Edwards take down the O big, the three OG's. He took down KD last year. He's obviously dismantling the Lakers and LeBron this year. If he could do that to go to state and stuff as well, bro, like outside of winning the championship, what else would be more more prestigious for for for a buddy young superstar to do what he's been doing.
Now, here's the thing. The reason why I would like to see the wolves just take the Lakers out is because even if the Lakers flip a switch and somehow miraculously make it out of this series, they're not going as far as I thought they were initially, you know what I'm saying? I was wrong. I could admit it and I just don't see them do.
I don't have analysis for them to do anything to get out of this series. Like I have Supreme confidence in Detroit. You know what I'm saying? I see, I see the past.
I don't see the past with the Lakers. Now, we're playing the way he's playing. Damn. It's funny seeing people talk about him being the dragons layer and say, oh, he took down KD and he's going to take it on the Bron and go see him take down stuff.
And my focus for get Luca on the fucking team who just went to the finals. But we'll talk about Luca, you know, it's time coming. It's just that Luca is not a legend in the game yet. Like he's still right.
Luca's a legend. I agree with what you're saying. I agree with that statement, but I also remember vehemently arguing with you guys about Luca being the best player on that team. No, okay.
Two things can be certain. I think Luca is the best player on that team. But to me, if his career ended right now, I don't know if he's first based on some people that have gotten in there, he'll make a Hall of Fame. But to me, he hasn't like, as his name in Stone just yet, like he's still writing.
Let's have a nickname as Luca Legend. As somebody called him that way. A lot of the legends and Luca Legend. Nick, do you think he's a legend right now?
I personally, I think we've been, we haven't properly had a good conversation about Luca. And yeah, we haven't. But hold on to that. I think that, so like, for me, I'm waiting for this series to be over with as far as the Lakers will really truly get out of that conversation.
But can we finish with your points? Well, you know, and I'll try to be as brief as possible. This was a coaching loss 100% through and through. This is JJ Redick, who I think has done a fairly good job, you know, but up to this point, but you cannot make this sort of decision to play your players the whole second half and you have a 10 point lead going to the fourth quarter.
Gay Vincent is, it's in a show that you have confidence in those guys. You have Lebron and Luca, who can find those guys for passes. They can set them up to hit shots. You got Dolph the Connect, who can shoot a three, you got a game, that's who can shoot a three.
I think they need to play chat say, this is the thing that got Darva Hamfire, rotations, rotations, rotations. This is him showing bad rotations in the playoffs. The issue with Darva Ham is he showed it throughout the whole season. JJ Redick is exposing his ability to coach in the playoffs this year.
And if he has those same issues, then he can be up out of there. His rotations have been better. But now he's now the pressure is on and he got desperate to win a game and he tried to get cute. There's no need to do that because you need Lebron and Luca to be have energy.
Look, magic already said, it made no sense for him to do that. You got to try to get your players some rest. And if JJ Redick was on that podcast with Lebron or on that first take with Steve and Ace Bill, JJ Redick would be saying the same fucking shit about himself. So why the fuck did he mean to it?
It didn't make any fucking sense. So yeah, he deserves all of the blame for what happened in that game. But I'm not going to leave. I already talked about Lebron's turnover, which was horrible.
And that 26 foot three pointer that he shot with under a minute left in the game that made no sense up to after I think A.R.E. He's gave him a delete. I also remember Luca taking that same three pointer, 25 footer that he missed. And I also remember Luca filing Anthony Edwards on a three point shot as well.
And Anthony Edwards hit all three when they had like a five point lead or something like that. So Luca made his mistakes too. They should not be losing the series. I'm sorry, not with Luca and Lebron because that's how they got Luca.
They got Luca. Luca goes to the finals. Bro, they got Luca. They got Luca, man.
Oh my God, Nico traded away for Luca. What the fuck difference Luca making on the scene now? You know, you know, so that, you know, that's my thing, man. I think that it's a long way to go, but you know, it's not looking good.
So Luca and Edwards though, I mean, sometimes, hey, man, he might be ready. This might be it. Sometimes you don't, you don't see it until it happens. Like when Jordan took down Isaiah, when magic got old, you know what I'm saying?
And this might be the thing. So it might be an Edward Stein, bro. You might be right, Ken, because he's really locked in like he don't want to raise no baby. He would focus on his head.
He would notice you. One of the things that I truly like about myself is that I'm willing to live and die on my takes. I don't know what the fuck PFO just said right now. I'm still processing that.
He can show me stuff. I'm not saying I'm not saying like I'm going far. JJ, watch out with JJ. It's about the worst.
When what are you talking about? What are you saying? Oh, the misery, man. I've called, I've been calling out.
JJ says since he got hired care. I said, don't I was like, bro, I don't trust him. And my mother was like, look what are you doing? He got the best he was in this part of the season.
He've been doing this. People talked about rotations. He said he figured out the role. What JJ did was one of the most disrespectful things.
I think in NBA history, he said, fuck a bitch. You think it's dope to get on the court period. That is the most district. If I was a, you could argue that going into like, he basically said the series is over already by doing that.
Because how can you as a team go into the next game and say, my coach has confidence in me to do my job? Yeah. How can you say that when he said that there's five to six or whatever other players left on that bench can help us win? When he didn't put you in, he was willing to let a 40 year old man with over 20,000 minutes continue to put miles on his body.
He let a fat motherfucker. He let that motherfucker hobble around. He was going to get in shape by the fourth quarter. This to me, this is why I said, let's just wait to see.
I called him out again. Oh, we said, we need to talk on watch one of them. I said, let's see what he does. Because he's the reason why they would either get far or not, because we already know what LeBron and Luke can do in the playoffs.
But we also know that coaching. We also know that teams live and die by their coach. This is why people say the Knicks for as sound as they are, they but they'll maybe what holds them back. You know what I'm saying?
So when you see something that's never happened in NBA history and it's not a positive thing, that speaks all use. And again, I don't want this to be all about the legacy because I picked. I'm the only one that picked the T rules to win in six. And I was the main one that said, y'all got in fucked up because this dude, we're looking at this series like people like we talked about it like Lucas, as far as that like I think it's better than Lucas if you ask me personally, and he's proven that in this series because he can legit do it on both ends as far as offensive defense.
That's no question. And he can match you score for score. Lucas dropped 38 last game and had over 40. He basically erased everything and look at only had one rebound and two assists.
He's supposed to be the white magic Johnson. And now he's with the Lakers. Yeah, he's even more than the white magic Johnson and he ain't done shit on that side of the ball. That's my main criticism that I've had that we've called out in the show.
I was like, the Lakers don't have enough sides. The Lakers don't have a good bench. The Lakers don't have a good coach. It all got on display and game for.
And again, I'm not saying I'm still giving. I said the Lakers will lose in six because I said LeBron is worth two games. He got one more. I'm giving him one more game, Ken.
It's going back to home to LA. LeBron has to win that game for his legacy. He can't get gentlemen, sweet that home. That's a doubt.
He nuts. But yeah, this is just I've never seen that before where you say fuck the bench. Yeah, that was insane. And the thing about it is that this is the last thing I say, and then we'll go to where we would spike is that one thing I've been seeing people say is that with Luca, you can alternate them to because of how they play and they get everybody involved.
And I've seen people say that they play better when LeBron is off the court. So why not wrestle LeBron and just play look it? It may no sense what he was thinking. It just I don't know, man.
So anyway, it's not over yet. Kind of like go to state. You got to have one of them on the floor. You got to have Jimmy or you got to have Steph.
Same thing with Luca and LeBron. One of them should be on the floor all the time, but they should both get their risk in the fourth quarter, play the football court.