These guys survived the David Con era of Tipperwolves basketball and live to tell about it. It's Fleequid howls. And welcome in to everyone's favorite Tipperwolves lifestyle podcast. I've got at least three wolves thoughts for you here today.
It's a Phil's Wolves thoughts edition of flagren howls. Maybe even a fourth if you guys are lucky. There might be a fourth thought in there too. But the wolves lose yesterday.
It's the third time all year they've lost back to back games. And so I'm just gonna throw thought number one at you and get your thoughts sports dad. You've seen a lot of Tipperwolves basketball in your lifetime. My first thought is I feel like people need to calm down with their wolves PTSD.
This is again the third time that they've lost back to back to back games all year. They have bounced back like they've continued to remain number one in the Western Conference. But people ring their hands and I'm not saying there's not things to like poke and prod from these losses. They're totally are things.
But there just seems to be a lot of like breathing in the brown paper bag. Oh my god, what is this? Is this the end? Is it all gonna come crumbling down now because they lost back to back games including a game yesterday where they shot like 30%.
So I'm here to say let's all just chill for a second. We're this deep in the season. It's in March and they just lost back to back games for only the third time. I think they'll find a way to get back on track.
So how about this? How about instead of hyperventilating about wolves defeats? Because this is a great time of year. We're down to 21 games left.
Games have started to take on forms. Like you can start to see the playoff push, right? And like I firmly believe that in sports, you don't have to be fighting for a playoff spot to sort of take on a playoff form. Like you start to see things and this doesn't just go for the wolves, this goes for opponents too.
It's start to see things that you didn't see let's say back in December. But instead of just saying, oh my god, they lost C, this is the wolves. This is the same old wolves. I think what we can do is have rational conversations about what we see as the problems, which will bite them in the ass and the playoffs unless they're fixed.
Cause like those are things to be, and I guarantee you the wolves are concerned about, right? Cause yeah, these are, this is a good team. These are not the same old wolves. Do they have their problems?
Absolutely. Could those problems lead to a playoff ouster? Yes, but this isn't a team in my opinion that I watch and say, oh, see tonight they suck. Tonight they're no good.
This is a team where, and this is very hard cause it's the wolves. This is a team where they are playoff team. They definitely have what it takes to make a playoff run. But now you're looking at what needs to be sort of fixed here.
So yes, hyperventilating, no. Slightly concerned or seeing things that you could be concerned about come springtime, absolutely, but that's not a bad place to be. Right. I think first of all, that game yesterday, you could say the game from a couple nights ago against the Kings.
Okay, Anthony Edwards leaves halfway through. No, Darren Fox didn't play. So the Kings would say that on the other side. You know, the defense got weird and leaky and they could have run a better play for Carl Anthony Talens maybe to win that game.
Definitely things to poke at, but Anthony Edwards was thinking about having a child the entire first half and then left at halftime. So just kind of a weird circumstance. Last night or yesterday afternoon, this is what's crazy to me. First of all, it felt like a playoff atmosphere.
You kind of alluded to that. Just back and forth, Hey, makers, the entire second half, Duke, some of the leagues brightest stars, Kawhi Leonard and Anthony Edwards. I mean, how many future Hall of Famers are just duking it out last night on the court? You know, at least a handful.
But the Wolves have now played the Clippers three times. And this is one of the premier teams in the league. I mean, the Clippers are considered, the Clippers are considered heavier favorites to win the championship than the Timmer Wolves in most sports books. I know they're fourth in the Western Conference, but they, I believe they have better odds in most sports books to win the championship.
So they're right there in the thick of it as a title contender. And the Timmer Wolves have played them three times so far this year. And they've held the Clippers to an average of 98 points per game. They average 117 points per day.
So the Wolves are holding the Clippers 20 points under their season average defensively. So I don't know if they knocked down a couple extra shots. They probably just win that game yesterday. And everyone's feeling great about this team, right?
I've got a feeling your notes are going to include fourth quarter clutch time. So yeah, I think that's where, and that's not just a Clippers thing. That's a since Christmas thing that I think is worth discussing because that will undo you in a playoff game. But yes, again, these are not the Wolves that were used to.
Just like, oh, yeah, OK, yeah, no surprise they suck. Like this team definitely should be held to a standard. But every single loss cannot be that the sky is falling. If you go into a tailspin, that can be a problem.
But yeah, this is a very different conversation than Tim Wolves fans have had in years and years, probably going back to the Western Conference final team with KG. Yeah, I think I don't know. It's three games is a small sample size. But if yesterday and the three games against the Clippers are a litmus test or how would a series between these two teams play out?
Well, first of all, most teams, the Wolves are going to play in a playoff series. It's going to be a grind. There's a bunch of really even the teams at the bottom of the bracket. It seems like the Warriors and the Lakers were some of the greatest players of all time.
So you're going to get into series where it's close on the fourth, it's back and forth, and there's haymakers, and it goes six games or seven games. Oh, yeah. But if if defense is the main pillar for the Timmer Wolves, and we're using that as a gauge for these three games against the Clippers, again, they've held the Clippers under 100 points average in the three match ups. Yesterday, Paul George and James Harden were five for 26.
Harden was over 10. Yeah, Harden and McShod. Because every shot had a Rudy go bare hand or a Jay McDaniel's hand or a Carl Anthony Townes hand or somebody in their face. And so I guess that gets us the second thought here, which is on the late game struggles.
Dane Moore had this tweet yesterday. The Wolves have the worst clutch offensive rating in the NBA since Christmas. And my second thought here is can we really blame being a young team? That's that's so Stephen A Smith made that reference over the weekend, too.
Like other young team. And Kyle Anderson said about the late game offense, quote, we're just getting it all out of the way right now. Play off. We're going to be great.
He kind of said laughing it off. We're still a young team. People forget we got a lot of young guys out there. Of course, we got to grow up and figure it out.
I think we will. We'll just learn from our mistakes. But here's the hole in that logic. Rudy go bare has 11 years of experience and a boatload of playoff games.
Mike Conley has 17 years of experience. Kyle Anderson has 10 years of experience. Boatload of playoff games. Carl Anthony Townes.
I think we like we like lump him into the young category. 28. He's been like for nine years. Been to three playoffs, right?
Yeah, Monte Morris, seven years in the NBA. He's like 28 years old, been in a bunch of playoff games. Ant is young. Ant Jaden Nas Reed is 23 24.
And the key Alex and her Walker is young. So I'll give you those four guys. They have four young players. But I mean, couldn't you go up and down almost any roster in the league?
You could like the Warriors have young guys up and down too. You can't just say because you have like three young guys on your team that like, oh, we're young. So I would avoid using the weird, just a young team. Like the Wolves are not anywhere near one of the youngest teams in the NBA.
No. And the clutch offensive thing to me is troublesome because it's now not a small sample size, like it dates back to December now. So from John Kritoski's piece in the athletic today, okay? The Wolves were eight and one with a plus 23.7 points per 100 possessions net rating in clutch situations when the start of the season until December the 19th.
They're 126.3 offensive rating was sixth in the NBA during that time. So very good. Since then the Wolves are seven and 11 in clutch games with an offensive rating of 94.6, which is last in the league in a net rating of minus 23.8, which is 25th. That's really bad.
Yeah. That's really bad. And it's not, you know, it's not just like since February 28th. So like that's where I do think that there are, it's becoming crystal clear that some things need to be cleaned up.
And this is sort of a blessing in disguise because you're getting this before the playoffs. Like it's not derailing you. You're still going to be a top, you know, top three seed. So it's not like, oh my God, they're falling apart and it's done.
I think these are things that good teams look at and say, how do we fix this? Like this is a troublesome because it's funny. The Memphis and Sacramento games, the Wolves got off to terrible starts. I think against the Grizzlies, they were down 14 to nothing.
Again, Sacramento, it was like 16 to four or something. And then yesterday they got off to an unbelievable start and we're blowing the Clippers drawers off. Yeah. But the commonality is they lost all three.
Why do you lose? You lose largely because in those last two games, your late game play was not near what it has to be. Yeah. And in fairness to the young thing, I think if I could rephrase Kyle Anderson's quote here, it's all read it to you the way he said it.
And then I'll rephrase it. So he says, we're still a young team. People forget we have a lot of young guys out there. Of course, we've got to grow up and figure it out.
I think we will just learn from our mistakes. I think what is more correct is the guy that is the highest usage player at the end of the games is really young. And then people forget we have a really young guy that we're leaning on at the end of these games. That's probably, I mean, Anthony Edwards has figured out he's figured out how to be a top 10 scorer overall in the NBA and he's figured out how to take that leap and he is one of the future faces of the league.
But he hasn't fully figured out exactly how to unlock himself and the team in some of these situations. Right. And like the Clippers are very switchy defense. I'm going to get in the weeds here with you real quick.
And sometimes that throws the term rules off to where, OK, they're switching everything. And now there's a smaller guy guarding cat, which actually is a problem for him at times. Like how do they beat some of these switchier defenses? But they've got enough talented smart people on the court.
And like ironically, the opposite of what Kyle Anderson is saying, they've got enough experienced veterans on this team that they should be able to unlock this. Right. Like the fact that they've got Conley 17 years cat, dude, you've been in the league for nine years. You're not a young guy anymore.
All right, let's let's go to school. Let's go watch some film and figure this thing out. Kyle Anderson 10 years, we Monte Morris just got here, but they've got enough experience to unlock this and figured out. And I think I'd be a little more nervous if Anthony Edwards was like super aloof and just went against the grain all the time.
But Anthony Edwards seems determined at every corner of his career to unlock the sticking point. So I do think they're going to turn this round. But it's a bad look, man. Like you just read the stats since Christmas.
The fact that they've stayed this high up in the standings and have been that bad late and close games offensively is pretty remarkable. But the sticking point comes late. And I think to the one name that we have not broached here that has to be brought up as Chris Finch as well. Like there's definitely things he could do like in games with timeouts.
I feel like he and this is sort of a dicey dicey thing because it's a difficult path to walk times. I feel like he had times and powers as players too much. And like with Conley and go Barrett, they're older, that's fine. But you know, like with Ant, the confusion yesterday, where he where he gets a at the end, two point dunk at the end with three seconds left, which is useless, with which Finch told him take the three of time and answer a loss track of things.
That comes back to your point about when that happens. That's sort of not having the feel yet for the actual game itself. And that's where you need help. That's where you that play.
I put that on because Finch Finch told those guys, hey, we have a time out left. So we can we could there's 13 seconds left. We're down by three. We definitely need a three.
But if it's not there, if the lane is open, you could score a two. We could foul call time out advance the ball. But Anthony Edwards waited too long. They just, you know, that's your point about the field for the game.
Like that's five seconds. I think, and by the way, like the credit to the Clippers do because a lot of teams just inbound it and take the foul. The Clippers played hot potato brilliantly at the end of that game, which is to be expected. They got why?
Yeah. Yeah, just boom. Throw the ball to the air, throw it up in the air and get it out of bounds. Yeah.
And the clock runs out. So, oh, it's, yeah, it is their biggest problem. Late game, close clutch offense. What I would really like to see too is is this like if there's one area where Ant can develop between now and the playoffs, it's this one too.
It needs to be, especially in the playoffs. Look, dude, you're great and you should take huge shots. I get that, but it needs to be more than you in catatimes or just go bare inside. Like Jay McDaniel's can shoot.
I think the Sacramento game was testament to this. If you get Jay involved in confident, he is a plus player. But when he started just standing out there on the perimeter like this and look, he doesn't have the cache to say, give me the damn basketball, right? More Scott hot in the game yesterday, but gets only X amount of shots.
And I'm not saying that these guys should be shooting right and left here, but I think the feel of like what Ant could have of when to involve guys could be the difference between a playoff win and playoff loss. Well, yeah. I mean, yesterday is a great example too of like. The defense that they've played on the Clippers, I think is a small sample side, it's only three games, but I feel like this wolves team matches up really well defensively with the Clippers.
The Clippers have a bunch of dudes that they love to go one on one and get their, you know, contested shots off. Like the wolves have lengthy athletic dudes that can make those shots even harder. Yep. But on the other side, I think the wolves just missed a lot of wide open luck.
I mean, I think cat missed his last 10 shots in that game. You got to a great start and then got cold. Yeah. One goal.
The wolf shot and this happened. I was at the game last week. They were, uh, it was the ugly win over. Who was it?
It was the grizzly. It was the back to back. They played a really ugly game and they won at home, but, um, but they shot like 38% in the game. And they, and they grind it out the way.
Last night was the same thing. It was like they shot 38%. They're going to knock down more shots. I feel like going forward, like they've come out of the all star breaks or rust.
We can have some, I guess my rambling point here is they clamped the Clippers in three games in a way that I think is sustainable, but I don't think the wolves are going to shoot 27% from three point range and all. I think they match up well with the Clippers and they just lost a playoff style game and. But I think in the playoffs, what you have to be prepared for is the good teams and smart teams are going to do two things. One, they're going to clamp down on aunt.
Is that going to completely take him out of the game? Probably not. The other thing, they're going to frustrate Carl. So what happens then?
Like those I saw it. Phil, first quarter yesterday, wolves are looking like world beaters, right? And every single time basket or not, that aunt or cat thought that they got touched. They were complaining.
And I'm like, guys, this is not, this is not a playoff formula. I don't want to do any good to waste your energy, bitching. It doesn't. And they're doing it every single time.
And then both of them went to officials during timeouts to get explanations for why they weren't getting calls and stuff. Focus on what you can control. And the other thing is, unless you're a bitch, the more calls I think you're going to get. Yeah, there was a lot of it.
It wasn't quite as bad as it's been in some of the derailment games we've seen in the past, but there was definitely like an assistant coach at one point came over and it's like, cat, you got to get in the huddle here, man. Like what are we doing? Right. I just think in, I think in the playoffs, you need to be laser focused on what you can do.
Because it's, you know, it's so stressful. It's so tough. Focus on what you can control. Hey, before we get to a couple of other thoughts, including a really interesting 10 day contract edition over the weekend, a shout out to our friends at first equity mortgage.
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TJ Warren is a really interesting 10 day contract signing for the table. So he may be vaguely familiar to casual basketball fans, but 2020 when the NBA paused for like four or five months during the pandemic, they came back and they played the end of the regular season in the bubble. And then they played the playoffs in the bubble. And TJ Warren, who's like a 15 points per game scorer in his career, he was playing for the Indiana Pacers at the time.
You spent the first years of his career with the Phoenix Suns. The first game out of the out of the quarantine and into the bubble. And he drops 53 points 24 29. He knocked out nine three pointers in a win over Philadelphia.
And then he went 34 points, 32 points, 39 points in the next few games. He was like the story of the bubble at the beginning of the run. And then Indiana Indiana went on to I think it swept by Miami in the playoffs that year, but he had a great run toward the end. Comes back the next.
So it's like, wow, this former first round pick, he's breaking out. He's he's 29 year or 25, I think at the time. Right. And then the fourth game into the season, the next year, he suffers a stretch fracture in his left foot misses the entire rest of the season and the entire season after that with the foot injury.
And he came back last year with the Suns and the Nets. He was just not quite the same player, but he's a six foot eight wing, 220 pounds former first round pick. He's 30 years old. He's a 15 points per game scorer.
He's at three different seasons where he shot over 40% from three point range. And he said in an interview recently, I'm getting this from Canis Tupas that he's now 100%. He's ready to rock and roll, but he didn't catch on with the team yet. So it's the sort of what if story this guy was one of the premier players in the bubble four years ago suffers the stress fracture and he spent the last few years trying to get right.
And the Wolf just signed him to a 10 day contract to see if there's any gas left in the tank. So super interesting. If you can get back to being even like 80% of the player that he was, right, we'll see. So can he go play for the team in Des Moines, the Iowa team or what's the you know, I don't know how that works.
If you get a ramp up stint or if it's a 10 day, I think it's a 10 day contract that you just have to play here. He's got to play here and see if you can do he is a he's kind of an old school profile player in that a lot of his offensive damage comes from the mid range. He's like a 48% mid range shooter who can also knock down threes in different spots, but his three point shooting has been kind of spotty since since the foot injury. But I mean, this dude was a real legit like starting wing player for Phoenix and for the Pacers for a few years.
So we'll see. Question for you. Does the data show that the mid range jumper is back more than it was about three or four years ago? It's a good question.
I don't know. I feel like I see more of them now than I definitely did in the Rockets. Mike Antony, glory days. Yeah, I think.
And I don't I'd have to go look and see like the lead wide numbers compared to maybe eight or 10 years ago, which I can pull it up quick, but it does feel like we went way too far in the direction of the Rockets did it more than anyone. The Rockets basically said under Mike Dantony and in the front office. Yeah, no one shoots unless it's a layup or a three pointer. Right.
And that opens yourself up to the variants that they saw in that playoff game where they missed 27 consecutive threes. It's like, can someone just like get to the free throw. But I was like, I was like, why don't they just make a shot and then go back to the three and they wouldn't do it. Yeah.
But it is like there are certain guys in Anthony Edwards is becoming one of them where he's a really high percentage made rain shooter. Kevin Durant has always been this Chris Paul's been this Devin Booker and TJ Warren. Also where if you've got an open look from 17 feet, it's absolutely inefficient shot because you make it at a certain rate. Now, if you only knock down like 35% on mid range, sure, you probably shouldn't be shooting that shot.
So it all kind of depends on the player. But yeah, I think we went so far in the direction of, Oh, analytics three is our worth more than two is like, right. But if you're just like a media three point shooter, you should probably find a different spot of the car. Yeah, strikeouts.
We went way too fast. Oh, you must have three. It doesn't matter. Well, actually, if you miss 27 consecutive threes, it does.
Yes. So and then, OK, thought number four to wrap the podcast here. Everyone needs to calm down according to John Krasinski about the ownership situation. It's the end of March is the deadline, not the beginning of March.
So he clarified that yesterday that that. And I don't know if like Glenn, I think Glenn Taylor's maybe been misrepresenting this in his conversations with people because I'm pretty sure Glenn has been telling like doogie and others that it was maybe the beginning of March was the deadline. I'm then they had to push it. I read this from Johnny yesterday.
I'm wondering, I'm wondering if there are different sides of the stories. But shouldn't I mean, a deadline should be in writing somewhere, right? It should be, but we haven't seen it. I'm just saying, I wonder if there is a side from the a rod, Laurie Group, you're like, oh, it's fine.
It's fine. It's fine. And Glenn's like, it's sort of wonky. And so it's like maybe Glenn doesn't fully immerse himself in what's happening all the time.
I mean, he didn't even know who he didn't even know who Tim Conley was. No, that's true. That's true. That's true.
That's true. That's true. That's true. I'm going to put the jury out on this whole thing.
I'm not sure what to make of this yet. They can't possibly be having a hard time finding the funding for this. Oh, I'm not saying it won't work. I'm just saying the jury's out to me.
I'm like, how this is all going to go eventually. I just don't know yet. I think they're going to finish the purchase like they're getting this team at like a half billion dollar discount. I agree with you.
I think it's going to go through what I'm saying is like long term of how it's going to look and how it's going to play out and who's going to do what? I'm curious about. Yes, I agree. The purchase gets done.
They'll find investors. I just I'm I'm always leery of ownership that comes in until you've seen a little bit more once they gain full control. But I'm hoping. Oh, you're oh, you're skeptical of a rod and Laurie.
Yeah. I'm going to everyone who buys a team. I was going to build the Wilson first. Like you just don't know.
Do you think they're going to try and move the walls? Is that what you're skeptical of? I don't think so at this point. But I mean, here's the thing.
The building will be a huge thing. Like they are going to they are going to and I don't blame them on this. They are going to demand a new building. I'm sure that they will invest their own funds to a certain degree, but they're definitely going to ask for state help, city help, county help targets that are just not sustainable.
I mean, they've been from I don't do a lot of reporting on the show, but from what I have been told they understand or have been coached up on how impossible it is to get funding for a new arena, most likely because we look at the battle that we went through for 10 years with the twins, the Vikings went to the ground. Yeah. So they are well aware that they can't just come in and be like, Oh, let's ask the state for money and that that's going to get rejected pretty quickly. So they've been putting plans together.
I don't know how far down the road they are on this, but they've got the ownership group that they're putting together to make the final purchase, but then they're also looking at putting together a group and I don't know how many overlaps there's going to be a separate group to build some sort of arena or other businesses. And I don't know what their exact real estate plan is, but that they are looking to fully, privately finance that entire. Oh, probably lots of them if they do that. So but that's easier.
I mean, if they're once the price tag gets up to about $2 billion, then maybe we want to have a little bit of talks like if there are talks, I don't know if they're in talks with the wills. I mean, I will say this that Egan land where TCO is out there. There's a whole lot of land out there. Oh, you're saying like move it out.
So suburbs. Yeah. Look, I think keeping it downtown would be I would hate if that. I'm a lot of out of downtown.
I think a lot of people would, but I will always go back to this. The twins and wolves get no parking. If you want a building, state of the art building in the suburbs with parking, you get to make all the parking money. You know, no, it's possible.
I mean, there's been other. I mean, didn't the bulls moved out 30 years ago? They moved out further with the United Center, right? I mean, no, that's just across the street.
Okay. So they're they stayed. Yeah, they stayed. But I'm the walkie stayed.
They stayed down there. Yep. And look, ideally they stay. My point is that, you know, we become accustomed as bad as the wolves have been for a long, long time.
We've also become accustomed to there's no threat to move. There's no threat of this or that. You know, these guys are going to be, I think in some ways, it's great, far more aggressive. It'll be interesting to see, but they have to complete the purchase.
They got to complete the purchase first. And apparently they have until the end of March to do so. I agree with you though. I think it's that.
That's a wrap on flagrant howls here with sports ad OG wolves. Watch her going back to the late 1980s. Wait, wait, wait, before we go. Let's just approve it.
I'm going to show you my NBA draft button, the inaugural. Look at this. Poor Richardson right there, folks. Oh, that is a pin from 1989.
Yeah, it has yellow slightly. You can see it was supposed to be totally white and it's sort of off color now because of that. Yeah, it looks a little bit yellow. Girls.
Well, it's a metronome. So it's pins like that that make this a Tim Rwell's lifestyle podcast. See you guys.