Lakers vs. Timberwolves: The WORST-GREATEST 4th quarter ever? 😂 | The Hoop Collective

Probably feels like Wednesday. The night is young. Let's play three. Yeah. You know, I wondered somebody mentioned this to me today. Should with this new schedule should the NBA have the playoffs start on Thursday? If it feels weird to have play and play in you should have two first round games that are already set on Thursday. You just keep the momentum going. I think it's a good question. I hadn't thought about it like that. I want that night off because the the Monday they take off is annually the WNBA draft. So I've got that occupying that night Thursday is like the one fully guaranteed night off for me. And I think from a TV standpoint, they like it to start on the weekend, I guess for some reason Saturday and Sunday. I mean not that baseball is really anything you're paying attention to at this point, right? For sure. Well, anyway, it was how do we describe that? Laker Wolves game. It was interesting. It was certainly a play in game. I call it the greatest the worst greatest fourth quarter. I've ever seen. Oh my God. Lakers winning over Benny Hill music in the background. I don't know if our of our listeners are going to know what that's a reference to you might have to Google that or once they hear Yakety Sax, right? Isn't that what they? The music is called Jackson. Do you know what Benny Hill is? I do not. Oh, you're lying. Are you serious? I'm serious. I'm not surprised. Do you know what Yakety Sax is? I do not. I don't do you know? Yes. I know about it. All right. Anyway, it's not a good. It's not a good. It's not a compliment. The Lakers win an OT. There's so much to say about how awful that game was. So many terrible terrible things happen. Calling it a win is I don't even know if you can call the Lakers winning it. But look they did. I mean the thing about it was all the guys that they traded for weren't in the game. You know, Garvin Ham bench D'Angelo Russell. No, Jared Vanderbilt Malik Beasley. I don't remember the last time he came in the game. I mean, it was basically just it was kind of the old school Lakers trying to get it done and it reminded me of the old school Lakers because it was awful and Spears. I think I think Carl Towns got his fifth foul and just retired. Well, I don't even know. I don't know if Anthony Edwards even showed up the whole game either. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, we're recording this immediately after the game. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know if we'll get it. We'll hear about some interviews. Put Austin Rivers in at this point. Like Eliseo, you know, I've known Ant-Man to be somebody that plays some of his best basketball in the biggest moments and the most challenging of games and I was expecting a Godzilla-like performance for him to come in and step on the buildings at LA downtown. I am absolutely stunned that he had these struggles that he stopped going to his signature drives, not using his athleticism to his advantage. I'm I as you can tell I kind of I'm just very stunned that he didn't have but just a decent game. Let alone three. So well, I don't know if his shoulder how bad his shoulder was bothering him. Yeah, I'll be shot nine threes. It wasn't hurting too much. Well exactly. He was three or 17 of nine on three. I don't know what to make of it. I you know, the Lakers really were not very good and they were really relying on Dennis Schroeder like for a while. Their Dennis Schroeder was the only guy on the floor doing anything. Yeah, but it wasn't much. I mean Conley had a couple of plays including the he got fouled with a tenth of a second left regulation and hit three free throws. But part of it was like there was literally nobody else doing anything. And I mean, I'm going to circle Carl Towns because you know Towns is playoff history. I mean to me, this is postseason. The regular season is over. This is postseason people can say whatever they want. This playoff history is scattered to say the least. He's got a couple of impressive performances and a couple of performances that he you know are not commiserate of what they need for them. He took in the entire fourth quarter. I realized he was playing without trouble. But in the entire fourth quarter, he took two shots and there was repeated times where he had matchup advantages where he had Austin Reeves on him or Schroeder on him and he just gave the ball up. I just like he didn't he just wasn't looking for it. And when he did the couple of times he did shoot it. He just sort of faded away. I he did not take the shot in overtime. He had a a what do you what do you call five trillions Pelton quad trillion quadrillion. He had a quadrillion overtime. He played five minutes. Nothing. No shot. No rebound. No foul. No turnover. No nothing. He did nothing in overtime and in the fourth quarter, he took two shots and had one rebound. So look, you can blame Rudy Gobert. You can blame Jaden McDaniels. You can question Anthony Edwards. You can you can say a lot of stuff. You can say that the officials there were there were some fouls. I thought the second half that the Lakers got, you know, there was one play where Anthony Davis when LeBron through that dying quail lob in there late in the fourth quarter and you know, it looked like he kind of mauled Towns to get to get position to score. I mean, you can say all that. I agree with all of it. It's fine. Lakers got calls, whatever. Unacceptable for your 200 million dollar player. In that situation to be a 0-0 down the stretch of that game and there's a lot you can take away from this, but any had a great start. Yeah. He had a great start. Yeah, but should we as my car? Well, I mean that counts, but lame for I mean, that's why Mike is there right to take control of the game to make sure the guys get the ball where they need to go kind of be the conductor. And you know, I think Mike probably looking back reply. I say, yeah, I probably should have got kept the ball where he needed to get to be successful or pushed him to be successful. Like their whole team was just bad. I even think the coaching was bad at some point, you know, their Timberwolves do have a couple guys that could score on the bench. I just take Edwards out and put somebody else in give somebody else a chance and was tough because he was such a factor at the defensive end of the court, which you know, to his credit, he was bringing it at that and whatever he was going through. But yeah, I mean, you know, the final 11 minutes of fourth quarter in overtime, according to Alan Horton, their radio broadcaster was 2 of 16, 8 turnovers and one thing that stood out to me like there's a lot of conventional wisdom about, you know, the importance of getting close to the hoop that doesn't bear out statistically. But one thing that does bear out is in the fourth quarter in late game situations, three-point percentages go way down as compared to the rest of the game, whether it's fatigue or whatever it is that sets in and we saw that with the Timberwolves where you know, they built this lead on the strength of starting 16 of 32 from 3 and then in the fourth quarter, those all dried up and of in the last eight minutes of regulation, this changed a little bit in overtime last eight minutes of regulation. They did not take a shot closer than 22 feet to the back. Oh, oh, you know, I'm not questioning that because it felt like it was a tip in that was the one thing. So they didn't take their first shot and Edwards layup was in overtime. Yep. Yeah, he had that dunk in transition. Oh my God. So then do we beat up the coach like like who there's a lot of blame to point around here. Does A-Rod get some of this too? Like it's just like I you know what and and if you look at how the Timberwolves played in the playoffs last year and I've talked to Ant-Man about this like they were kicking themselves about losing that series to Memphis like they really felt like they should have won that series and it was the same stuff. Late games just falling apart. Lack of poise. Bad offense. It's it's it's it seems like this is the same thing. We saw from them in the playoffs. Other than the playing game that they did win when Patrick Beverly, you know, celebrate. Playing Pat as they call him. Yeah, he gets to be in the playing again. Wednesday night. The fouls were 21 to 3, you know in the fourth quarter and overtime Wolves over Lakers. Now, let me just say well aggressive to write the Wolves were fouling. They were fouling. There were definitely were some calls that favored the Lakers. No question about it. The Wolves were fouling. And you know, that was, you know, but I'm sure that there's going to be frustration on the the Wolves fans, but you just can't you can't run offense like that. You just can't do it. And I just I don't I don't know. I don't know what to make of this. If you're a Grizzlies, you got to feel like no, that's not the end of the world. This is this is good. You know, they've exhausted themselves and but they got five days now though. I know they don't play the next Sunday. They got up. Is it right? Was it five or six days? Five days? Yeah, the Lakers, you know, got a break in that they don't play till Sunday. The other the Eastern Conference 7 seed plays Saturday. The which is the Hawks. So who I don't know. I'm just a little disjointed from that Pelton. I think I do think that the Wolves had a good game plan. They really played a lot of heavy body movement and ball movement. They knew that they were going to have to get up a lot of threes. They did they were successful in that but this happens often and for the postseason the game devolves into a one-on-one game ISO game and that just was exactly what they did not want what they did not need. Yeah. I think there was also an element of protecting the lead that they had throughout this game. At some point you often see that I we you sort of said that we kind of stipulated to start the absence of Rudy Gobert. I mean, I feel like we should drill down on that because you know in a game that goes to overtime in that they end up losing Carl Towns was a plus 18 when he was on the court Tim rules were plus 18. This game was lost primarily during the period where he was out of the game in the foul trouble and they started out trying Nathan Knight who they had played as their backup center in game 82 against the Pelicans when they won with Gobert missing the entire second half of that game and that quickly proved not to work. He was just too small ineffective. So the rest of the night they essentially use Kyle Anderson who is a guy who not only a lot of the time plays small forward was their center when Towns was on the bench and foul trouble and that group was just not big enough to handle this Lakers front line. He played point guard at the other end. He had 13 assists, which is a career high. I think if Gobert and McDaniels play they win. I think that's a fair assessment. I don't know right now. I'm thinking but they didn't. I mean right now. I'm thinking if they had left Nikhil Alexander Walker on the port they win because I mean, this is a guy who three teams have given up on just in the last year and he was playing is impactful basketballs. I've ever seen him play considering the stakes. It's a long plane ride back to Minneapolis tonight for they may go back. I'm sure they're going back tomorrow 24 turnovers given up to be a long flight tomorrow, whatever they take it. It's gonna be a long. Yeah Spears. What do you think about the decision to suspend Gobert? Considering all the circumstances. Yeah, it was actually surprising. I do think it was warranted but I'm surprised that they did it, you know, there have been other teams that have had issues that off the court on the court that that didn't haven't done anything like this. I think you could mention the Draymond Green thing, but that was during the preseason and there won't be any games being played but he did miss like five or six days. Right? So I mean, I actually yeah, you know, they didn't want to suspend him for ring night. And so, you know, he took like a leave of absence and who knows what they find him. But yeah, I mean, I understand you just can't do that. Right? You can't and you know, I'm knowing Rudy the way I know Rudy. I know he right now. He's probably feeling awful. Yeah, a lot of for a lot of reasons. Seeing that game seeing the impact that he could have had. I'm sure defensively on the boards because I think at the beginning of the game, there are probably a lot of people saying, oh, look, they play better without Rudy. They playing, you know, they play great without him, but it'll be interesting to see how he responds Friday assuming that he is playing Friday, but that's that's like a something that he'll never forget the rest of his life, you know, the Lakers, especially if they they get eliminated on Friday and I do think that the Pelicans feel like if they win that they they are confident that obviously they did lose to him a couple days ago, but they could be beat the Timberwolves. The Lakers had eight more offensive rebounds and 11 more second-chance points. So that doesn't happen. I would assume LeBron was their best offensive player. He scored 30 and the last time they played it. He should go 12 to 21, but you know, he had five turnovers and it felt like more. I mean, you know, he had some he had some pretty just in general. There was some pretty wild passes being thrown in this game and then he got his pocket picked by Torian Prince late in the fourth quarter where Prince just caught him sleeping and LeBron was called for a loose ball foul and it but they were the Lakers were not in the bonus and that was fortunate but like, you know, I don't think it was a command performance from LeBron, but he did. He did score 30 and when they had when they made the comeback, he was playing a big role. I think more impressive for LeBron is he had six assists and you had a couple of assists that set up key three-pointers including the Dennis Schroeder three-pointer at the end of the fourth quarter that look like it was going to be the game winner and then and that that shows just the greatness of him, right? Like even when he doesn't score he gets a figures out a way to win win the game, you know, or at least what appeared to be a winning shot at the time and I mean ad showed up but he had 24 15 and three blocks for assists. I mean he he was a factor and then, you know, at the end of the game, but so much of the end but several times when the game was just absolutely in the muck and nothing could happen. He just muscled in a basket and I'm sure the Wolves fans were screaming. He was committing offensive fouls, but he might have been but you know, a Brian to we got to give the Lakers credit for clawing back. How many were they behind? 15 they were so listless in the first half. So like lack of urgency and which was really really stunning under the circumstance. I don't know what was said in the locker room at halftime, but they definitely seem to have a different light underneath them in the second half. Well, we're in we're in they came out more aggressive season. So one of the things that's fascinating about playoff games especially play in playoff games where it's, you know, these games weren't one and done but they kind of felt like one and done tonight and the standard rich versus the the riches you get versus the spoils, right? Yeah, so vast agreed for sure. So we see this in the playoffs all the time where one team comes out of the gate and just completely plays with a different tempo and speed and aggression and after the game, I mean, I've heard this quote uttered a hundred times in dozens of different games and you will start hearing it. It probably is being uttered right now as the players are being interviewed, but you will hear it starting this weekend over and over and over they came out more aggressive or if their team wins will say we came out more aggressive. I have heard this is an explanation for how a playoff game is gone over and over and over and so I got I will give the Wolves this Pelton is that they did come out aggressive and I gave him a chance because they were able to build an early lead. Yeah. I mean we saw it in both of the playing games tonight. I think yeah, I was just sick. Yeah, I was going to I'm saving Atlanta. Okay. Yeah, Atlanta did did pull it out, you know on the road. Thanks to that strong start. Minnesota wasn't able to and you know, again, we touched on it earlier, but talents was a huge part of that and it didn't stand in contrast to what we've seen from him at times in the postseason and saw it at the end of this game, but he was close to unstoppable in your 24 points through three. Yeah, and the foul trouble definitely seemed to have some sort of an impact on him. And you know, he spent so long on the bench before coming back for that fourth 24 point through five. So yeah quarters. Yeah, the fifth foul was a not intelligent foul. I mean, I think the first the charge was a pretty ill-advised drive at that's his stage and compounded it then, you know, picked up more legitimate foul at the other end, but he had two fouls and 12 seconds after right, you know, staying out of foul trouble knowing that that was going to be crucial in this game without go bear and without we should mention Nas Reed who is still injured and that kind of exacerbated the lack of center depth for the Timberwolves Pelton. What do you what do you make of the Lakers in their legitimacy to to threaten the Grizzlies in this next round? I mean, I don't I don't know how much take out of this game. They they do have a very good record since the trade and when they had to play defense in this game. They did get stops. I don't know how much of it was of the Wolves, you know, kind of withering away, but there is this consent. There's this consensus that the Lakers are dangerous. I wouldn't be looking at them as a dangerous team. If I was had just seen tonight. I'm relying more on what I've seen for the last six weeks. But what do you think? Yeah. I mean, I think they are for a seven seed unusually dangerous when you combine their playoff experience, you know, they're there is the lower seed is we're going to also see in more dramatically. So in the Kings Warriors series, they're going to have the massive playoff experience Advantage on their side in this series, even though the Grizzlies did get a good taste of it last season winning around and you know, playing the Warriors tough and then, you know, they they are clearly capable of getting to a level that is greater than their record indicates if they have the guys they had at the trade deadline playing like they were in the regular season and not like they played tonight, which again, I don't think you take too much from this, but I think there was a bit of a reminder that what this is a different level of competition than the Lakers have generally been facing in this post all-star stretch and one way in particular that should show up was Minnesota shooting predictably when the Lakers had this stretch where they were the number one defense after the trade. They were also in the bottom five opponent three point percentage and that isn't necessarily something that's going to carry over. I think into into the postseason. Yeah Spears. How do you think I'm sure the Grizzlies who do not necessarily need confidence. They exude it.