Minnesota's NBA Playoff Surge Led by Anthony Edwards

SportsGrid

Watch Minnesota's NBA Playoff Surge Led by Anthony Edwards - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00At Minnesota is set up now to make a legit run.

00:04And I think if you are Anthony Edwards,

00:06getting to the conference finals two straight years

00:08at the age of 23 is fantastic.

00:12You know, when you do your re-ranking

00:14of best players in the world,

00:15Ant's going to be a big mover, I think,

00:17ultimately off of this postseason,

00:20assuming they aren't upset in round number two.

00:25I guess the question is,

00:26and we bring these two teams a little bit together,

00:28so I'll go to you, Coach,

00:29as somebody who thought the conference finals matchup

00:32would be Oklahoma City-Minnesota,

00:33but is expecting Oklahoma City to win that.

00:37How much more of a chance are you giving Minnesota

00:39off of beating the Lakers?

00:41I'm giving them a strong chance

00:43because I think they're playing their best basketball.

00:45And I think, you know, while we talk about Ant being unguardable,

00:48we talk about what Rudy's given,

00:50you know, secretly Julius Randle had a pretty decent series

00:53because he doesn't have to think that he's the man.

00:56Because he's not.

00:57And it's Ant.

00:58And it's very simply put.

01:00But to me, and we talked about this, Kevin,

01:02is like, McDaniels?

01:05I mean, no one saw that one coming.

01:09A guy that was getting, you know, what, like, you know,

01:1212 points a game during the regular season,

01:15now just extremely, you know, exploded in the playoffs

01:19and what he gave.

01:20And it's more than just the game one performance.

01:22And listen, it was quiet in game five with only eight points.

01:26But he fouled out.

01:28You know, nine, 16, 30, 25.

01:31If McDaniels gives you this, and then you have the bench,

01:35with DiVincenzo, with Alexander Walker, and, of course, with Nas Reed,

01:38they become a way where they can play a lot of different styles.

01:46They can go really big.

01:47They can go really big and go with Nas and Rudy.

01:50They can go small with Nas at the five and then Randle at the four.

01:54They can go McDaniels at the three and go with a four at the four and go three-guard lineup.

01:59So, to me, they pose threats because I think they are a sum of their parts

02:04that they can kind of, like, mix and match at the three, four, five position

02:09what makes dangerous.

02:11And then you have a guy in hand that I was, like, you know, before the season,

02:14okay, probably about 9, 10.

02:18I'm thinking about right now, like, you could be talking about

02:21is the fifth best player in the world, ready, Jason Tatum or Anthony Edwards?

02:25If you really think it's some combination of Giannis, you know, Joker, SGA, Luka.

02:31Don't you think people are going to jump Ant in front of Luka off of this series in rankings?

02:37It depends on, like, what, again, what narrative you're trying to push of, like,

02:40we've seen it from Luka, we've seen it in the playoffs.

02:43It's not to say that we haven't seen it from Ant.

02:45Granted, a smaller sample size, but it depends on what you want to push ultimately.

02:50But I also think, sorry, I also think what happens next series.

02:53I think next series is big.

02:55If he gets to a second Western Conference Finals and they're competitive against OKC,

03:00yeah, you could talk about Ant being the fourth best player in the world

03:03right behind Joker, Giannis, and SGA.

03:06But if they go the next series against either the Warriors or the Rockets

03:10and they flame out and Ant has a rough time,

03:13then I think he sits right there at six,

03:15which is right above someone that we should also talk about at some point,

03:19and that's Kawhi at, like, seven.

03:21Huh?

03:22Currently?

03:23I have Kawhi, seven.

03:24Correct.

03:25That's what I'm talking about.

03:26That's a different story.

03:27This guy, man.

03:28This guy, Kawhi.

03:28Minnesota, I love what you said about Minnesota,

03:31and it's a team that I, and what it reminds me of is a team

03:36when the Raptors won the title, right?

03:39When you have a Baca out there and Siakam, right?

03:41And they have, and obviously Kawhi was there.

03:43They can play multiple ways.

03:45They can play small and shoot the three, multiple guards out there.

03:48They can play big and match different teams.

03:49And matching up against a team like Houston, I think, is very, very interesting.

03:55What are they going to do?

03:56They've got to shut down Dan Vliet.

03:58They can throw a lot of different defensive assignments at Shingun, right?

04:02They can make his life difficult.

04:05This is assuming that the Rockets win, which is obviously, you know,

04:08we've covered that.

04:09I'm sorry.

04:10I'm just very curious.

04:14I just blew the whole show up.

04:15Go ahead.

04:15I'm just very curious.

04:16I'm trying to stay on topic.

04:18No, no, no, no, no, no.

04:19New topic, new topic.

04:21We're going to go to Greg Popovich in the next segment.

04:24So you have Kawhi as the seventh-best player in the NBA.

04:26Joker, Giannis, SGA, Luka, Tatum, Ant, Kawhi, LeBron.

04:30This guy's better than LeBron.

04:32That's crazy.

04:33He plays half a season.

04:35I know.

04:35He plays half a season.

04:38I know.

04:39And he's seventh.

04:41Yes.

04:42That is so outrageous and yet so on-brand for Kawhi Leonard.

Category

Transcript

Recommended