What’s Wright - Reaction to LeBron & Lakers beating Timberwolves in Game 2 of NBA Playoffs 1st round

Nick Wright reacts to the Los Angeles Lakers beating the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 2 and tying the series at 1-1 in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. Nick highlights one of the key plays from LeBron James, grades Luka Doncic’s performance, and picks apart what went wrong for the Timberwolves. Nick also quickly breaks down the Grizzlies going down 0-2 to the Thunder and why Memphis has virtually no shot. Nick also explains his biggest worry about the Milwaukee Bucks after another loss to the Indiana Pacers. #Volume #Herd

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome in What's Right with Nick Wright quick reaction pod
to last night's NBA playoff games one. Listen, Grizzlies thunder
just sim to the end. We'll get to that briefly
at the end of the pod. Somewhat interesting momentarily or
at least briefly interesting game between the Bucks and the Pacers,

(00:37):
a fifteen point lead trimmed to two in the waning moments,
but the Bucks not able to get over the top
and what that means for Giannis. But the game of
the night, which turned into the rock fight of the
night Lakers ninety four Timberwolves eighty five. I don't think
anyone is actually surprised by the result. Home team loses

(00:58):
game one, they are going to come out more urgent,
more focused, better in game two, and the Lakers did
and blitzed him in the first quarter thirty four to fifteen,
and then really just held on the rest of the way,
culminating in a fourth quarter where neither team could hit shots,
where the Lakers were just kind of limping to the

(01:19):
finish line and everyone seemed a little out of gas
except for the oldest guy on the court. And we
can do big picture stuff shortly. And I understand that
some folks will hear this and be like, you gotta
be kidding me. Lebron scored twenty one. His jumper wasn't falling.

(01:40):
He was eight of nineteen from the field, one of
five from three. And you're gonna wax poetic about the
game Lebron James had And the answer is yes, I am,
because there was one play late in the fourth quarter
that to me symbolized who Lebron has been since they

(02:02):
acquired Luca, and who he has been is whoever they
need him to be. That night, I will mold my
game accordingly. Three minutes left Lakers with the smallest lead
that they've had since it was fifteen to eight. They
are up nine. The Lakers were up at least nine
points for the final forty minutes of this game, and

(02:27):
the Timberwolves, however, in the fourth quarter, were slowly trying
to make it a game, and the Lakers had a
bad possession. Luca got caught up in the air through
the ball to basically nowhere, and Luca was excellent. More
on him in a moment, and all of a sudden,
the Timberwolves are in transition. Three minutes down nine, chance

(02:51):
to cut it to six or seven, and all of
a sudden, all the pressure will be on La and
Lebron circles around to where Anthony Edwards is getting the
ball at mid court in a semi transition situation, steals
it from Anthony Edwards, burst to the basket, lay up

(03:12):
up eleven, Game over. And what is to me so
remarkable about the best player I've ever seen, if people
are being honest, the best player anyone's ever seen this
year has been his ability to the instant they got

(03:37):
Luke Adancic him saying, Okay, I have to be a
totally different type of player because we're a totally different
type of team. After for the entirety of my Lakers tenure,
which at this point is as long as he has
ever stayed with one team consecutively seven years, he had

(04:00):
to be on the ball, ball dominant, running the offense.
His transition from that to a do it all, jack
of all trades player who in this game said, defense

(04:26):
is what we needed to lock in on. Defense is
what we drastically needed to improve on, and in the Lakers'
best defensive game of the year, at least as far
as how many points their opponent scored. He was the
best defender on the court, and get in where you
fit in on offense, crash the boards, try to get

(04:49):
other people involved, and lock down defensively to the tune
of Anthony Edwards, and not that he was on Anthony
a lot. After having nine assists in game one, zero
no one other than Julius Randall getting going at all,
and the Lakers winning a game they had to have

(05:13):
where they only hit six three pointers now the Timberwolves
only hit five, where neither team could hit a three
because it was their best defensive game of the year,
and the best defensive player for the Lakers, by Jared Vanderbilt,
was excellent in his very limited defensive moments. He only
played eight minutes. But the best defensive player for the

(05:34):
Lakers was Lebron James. And you can get away with
Lebron only scoring twenty, no one else scoring more than sixteen,
and hell other than Austin's sixteen Rui who might have
broke his nose in this game, which is something to
watch because guys do not like wearing that mask. The

(05:57):
only player who seems to not mind wearing that mask
Jordan Goodwin, who's been wearing it for months. If he
has to wear that mask the rest of the playoffs,
that's a concern. But the reason they were able to
win that game when no one had it going offensively
was because they locked in on the defensive end, led
by Lebron, and because they hit all their free throws. Now,

(06:20):
I understand folks are going to bitch and moan about
the officiating. I thought the officials took too big of
a hand in this game. However, it was so physical
and so such a slog on offense. I don't know
what it would have been if they would have let
them play even more for folks that care about the

(06:43):
actual numbers, twenty four fouls on LA, twenty two on
the Timberwls, twenty free throws by the Lakers, twenty five
by the Timbrels. Now, the Lakers went twenty of twenty
from the free throw line, which was damn important when
the tar Les are trying to cut into the lead late.
But I am I have just been really taken aback

(07:09):
by Lebron having the opportunity kind of unexpectedly to prove
to the world that what he has said his entire career,
I'll be whatever player this team in this moment needs

(07:31):
me to be Ego aside that that is actually exactly
who he's going to be. Usage rate plummets, being on
the ball plummets, and he just then can expend that
energy in different places. And so I thought, I have

(07:56):
thought for the last few years that the fact that
there is more commentary about Lebron James's defensive failings than
two of the other, probably not two of the other,
the two other all time legends in our midst who

(08:19):
carry a massive offensive workload for their teams. And because
of that, and because of for those guys, their own
physical limitations, their downright negative defenders. In Steph Curry, in
Nikola Jokic, nobody gives a shit. Everybody just recognized as well.

(08:40):
Steph's undersized, and he's expending so much energy on the
offensive end, he's got to kind of hide him defensively.
Joker is doing everything for the Nuggets offensively and is
so limited athletically that you got to just kind of

(09:00):
work around that. On the defensive end. Those guys nobody
ever complains about their defense. Lebron, who has played twenty
some thousand more minutes maybe thirty thousand now twenty thousand,
probably more minutes than Steph who's damn near a decade
older than Joker, who for the Lakers pre Luca carried

(09:26):
the exact same offensive responsibility on his team as those
guys did on theirs. Half the commentary seemingly around the
last couple of years as well, he's not the defender
he once was, and what he is showing you in
real time is, yeah, that's been out of necessity. But

(09:51):
if that role or responsibility shifts, he can still ratchet
it up to not the defense he was in Miami
because he's not the athlete he was in Miami, but
still an excellent, impactful, disruptive, versatile defensive player, and the

(10:12):
Lakers had to have that yesterday. I'm still waiting for
the Lakers' offense to show up to this series now.
The Timberwolves have done a great job of getting out
on shooters, of not letting anyone other than Luca really
kill them, of staying connected. They have been able to

(10:33):
hide Mike Conley, who had a really rough game, and
other than Mike Conley, anyone and everyone they put out
there is somewhere from passable defensively, and Julius Randall on
the scale from passable to excellent. Jaden is obviously excellent.

(10:56):
Rudy is obviously excellent with a few, you know, glaring weaknesses,
but his strengths are just massive. Nikhil Alexander Walker when
he gets out there as great defensively, Anthony Edwards is
one of the best two way players in the league.
So this is And by the way, in the next round,
you are going to be playing an excellent defensive team

(11:19):
if you're the whoever wins this series, no matter whoever
wins that series, because the Rockets and the Warriors might
be the two best defensive teams in the league not
named Oklahoma City. And in Round three you're probably playing
Oklahoma City. And so the Lakers locked in defensively, got

(11:40):
just enough from the offense, had a first quarter that
the Timberwolves were not ready for, and then held on
the rest of the way. On Luca, I give Luca
an a minus for this game, and the only Luca
was really strong defensively himself. Everyone on the Lakers, everyone

(12:02):
on the Lakers should feel good about their performance yesterday, honestly,
except for Jackson Hayes, who at this point you have
to I think you you keep giving him a chance.
But that sequence at the beginning of the fourth quarter
was just as dumb as it gets a totally unnecessary

(12:23):
illegal screen in the back court and then following that
up with one of the most obvious goaltends on a
shot that had no chance of going in and then
seeming shocked by it. That's that's a maddening sequence. He
played nine minutes, had five fouls. It was just brutal.

(12:46):
But what I was trying to get to before I
interrupted myself on Luca Luca. The reason it is only
an a is because and you saw bubbling. He almost
let the refs take him out of this game. And
I'm not saying Luca got a bad whistle. Luca got

(13:09):
to the line eleven times, but there was a sequence
when he thought he was getting hit, didn't get the call,
and then, in a borderline dirty moment, Jaden McDaniels is
on the ground and with his own ankles, grabs Luca's

(13:33):
ankle and Luca tumbles, and Luca was livid, and I
thought he was going to get a technical. If I'm
being honest, probably deserved a technical. Maybe the ref knew
he had missed it and so he didn't want to
give him a technical after the ref missed what was
honestly in today's NBA a flagrant foul. That's a non

(13:55):
basketball dangerous play, and Luca you saw him starting to
unravel a bit emotionally, and the Lakers I think then
called time out. His teammates got him under control. But
aside from that brief moment, Luca was unbelievable. Now he

(14:19):
needs to stop trying so often to just embarrass Rudy Gobert.
I think that takes the Lakers out of their offense
to a degree. But thirty one, twelve and nine in
a game his team scored ninety four points, and he
was the engine and the catalyst and the guy that

(14:42):
had it going in the first quarter. He had to
have almost outscored Minnesota himself in the first quarter. I'm
gonna actually check that real quick. That the Timberwolves had
fifteen in the first quarter the Lakers in that game.
In this game, I should say, let me just go.

(15:04):
My friends at Basketball Reference are good with this quarter
one Luca had. Luke had sixteen. So he didn't almost
outscore the Timberwolves in the first quarter. He did outscore
the Timberwolves in the first quarter. And we've now had
thirteen playoff games this year. The best one anyone has

(15:25):
played is Kawhi's Game two against the Nuggets. The second
best one anyone has played, given the context of everything,
was either Steph Curry's Game one against the war against
the Rockets or Luca Game two against the Timberwolves. Now,

(15:45):
Giannis might be like, what more do I have to do?
And more on him in a minute, because the answer
is I don't know what more he can do, man,
and you feel sick for him. More on Jannis just momentarily.
But the Lakers now have the opperation coortunity to take
a breath. They because of how the schedule falls. They

(16:09):
don't play tomorrow, which I think is nice. Travel today
or maybe they maybe they travel tomorrow. Actually I don't
know who cares when they'll travel. But they play Saturday night.
Is that right? No? What day is today? Sorry? Today's Wednesday.
They play Friday, So they go Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday for

(16:35):
the Friday for this series, I'm screwing this up. I
apologize it's early in the morning. Point is they get
two days between between Game one and two, and two
days between games two and three. Game three is Friday.

(16:56):
They then have one day between Game three and four,
and then again in two days between games four and five,
and then it's every other day however much longer the
series goes, so I think those will be two important
days off. I think the offense needs to get rolling.
I'm gonna check with our friends at what the updated

(17:19):
series price is. This opened Lakers minus two hundred. Then
it quickly shifted, obviously after the after the Game one
win to the Timberwolves as slight favorites. It is now
a Pickham series, so you would expect it not to

(17:43):
have shifted a ton from where it was before Game
two because the Timberwolves were the series' favorites, despite the
fact the Lakers were big favorites in Game two. My
if you guys remember what I said, was my favorite
bet of the Lakers minus a game and a half
in the series, meaning Lakers to win in four. That's

(18:05):
off the board. Five or six was plus one twenty.
It is now after last night, back to plus two
fifty five. I still like I still think a Lakers
in six is very on the board. They obviously need
to win Friday in Minnesota and then a quick turnaround

(18:25):
because they played Friday late night and then Sunday afternoon.
We'll see how that one goes. But this was a
huge win. I thought Lebron was exactly who they needed
him to be. I thought Luca was exceptional. I thought Austin,
after a rough first quarter, got it going. Now, Austin's

(18:48):
gotta stop trying to throw these lobs thirteen feet in
the air, as Dragonfly Jones wrote, he's trying to throw
lobs to two thousand and nine Lebron. That guy's not
walking through the door. And they got to figure out
what gonna do with Jackson Hayes. On the Timbrewl side
of things, it is even though I didn't expect him

(19:08):
to feature Rudy Gobert offensively, it is remarkable to me
how little they will give him the ball when he
has a mismatch, and I think that that's good for
the Lakers. Dante wasn't able to get into this game
really because of foul trouble. Now, the foul trouble was

(19:30):
hard to figure out because Reggie kept telling us guys
had four fouls, and then the graphics kept telling us
they had three. I didn't know who to believe, but
nas Reed got in foul trouble as well. Julius Randall
obviously was exceptional exceptional strong. Julius Randall was the one
guy on the Timbrels that had it going. They as

(19:51):
a team had fourteen assists. He had six of them.
The rest of their starting lineup had two assists, Jayden
with one, Conly with one. And their ability, which is
what I begged them to do before the series, to
listen ant, you're gonna get to the basket sometimes we'll

(20:11):
deal with that. We are not going to collapse on
you to all of a sudden leave other guys open.
I thought they did a way way better job of that,
which made Aunt have a quiet twenty five point six rebound,
zero assist game. And so that's the Lakers game. Let

(20:33):
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the other and again, I'm not gonna spend much time
really at all on Timberwolves Grizzlies. Just quickly if you
didn't those that game was on simultaneously with Ice Timberwolves

(22:47):
Grizzly sorry Thunder Grizzlies of Pacers Bucks. I was watching
much more of Pacers Bucks. So I don't really have
great analysis for you, except for the fact that after
the you know, not scoring twenty points for the first
time in like seventy five games, scored twenty seven, but

(23:10):
on twenty nine shots. He actually has had a rough
couple of games start this series, and it does not
matter at all because the Grizzlies have no shot and
don't seem to have a ton of interest in competing
in this series. So that one's done, the question is
will the Grizzlies get a game? My answer to that

(23:30):
is almost assuredly not. If you look at the Thunder
this year against the Memphis Grizzlies, it is start to
finish all year long utter domination game one of not
this series, but this season Thunder Grizzlies, thunder by twenty four,

(23:54):
game two, thunder by thirteen, game three, thunder by seventeen,
game four, thunder by twenty one, game five, thunder by
fifty one, game six, thunder by nineteen. The Thunder against
the Grizzlies this year have scored one thirty one, twenty

(24:17):
five one, twenty one, twenty five, one, thirty one one eighteen.
So the Grizzlies drawing dead in the series. And then
we get to Pacers Bucks, where, if I'm a Bucks fan,

(24:37):
I'm really worried. And it's not that I'm worried that
I'm going to lose this series. I'm worried about something
far more important. And so Dame came back. I was
saying on the TV show all week once we heard
Day might come back, imploring people that We need to

(25:02):
not act like when a guy has missed a month,
he's going to come back and look like himself. I know,
Dame hit, you know, a couple big shots late, but
he's four of thirteen, he's two of eight from three,
He's fourteen points, seven assists. He was fine, but it's
gonna take him time that they don't have to get

(25:23):
back rolling. Kyle Kuzma after the twenty trillion game showed
up and Port has played a really good game. Port
has had almost thirty off the bench. Not a really
good game, a great game. But the Bucks do not
have the ability to guard the Pacers, and it's why

(25:46):
the Pacers scored forty in the first quarter, won twenty
three for the game. And yeah, there was a moment
because it was one fifteen to one hundred. I think
I have that right. I'm gonna double check, but I was.
I think it was one fifteen, one hundred with five
minutes five and a half minutes left, and then Milwaukee

(26:07):
goes on a thirteen nothing run, culminating in a deep
littard three to make it one fifteen to one thirteen.
It's like, oh my god, they might steal it. Then
Siakam hits a three, nim Hard hits a three in
game over, and so here's where I'm talking about being concerned.

(26:28):
Janis had thirty four, eighteen and seven. Okay, Yannis in
this series is averaging thirty five, fifteen and four on
sixty five percent from the field, and they haven't really

(26:48):
been competitive in either game. Again, they got this one
to two with a few minutes left, but the Pacers
were in have been in firm control for ninety percent
of the minutes played in this series. And if Giannis
is you know how after the game guys usually have

(27:08):
the box score in their hand. If he's looking at
the box score and he's like, Torrian Prince is in
my starting lineup. Kyle Kuzma's in my starting lineup. Brook Lopez,
who I won a championship with God love him, but
was in the two thousand and eight draft and is

(27:31):
thirty seven years old, is in my starting lineup. My
best guy off the bench other than Gary Trent Junior,
who's a nice player, is Bobby Portis. He's thirty years old.
We're leaning on Torrian Prince. What is my Kevin Porter

(27:56):
Junior has become shockingly important to this team. Ryan Rollins,
who played real minutes in the first game of this
series because Dame was out. Now that Dame's back is
a DMP coach's decision. AJ Green's part of the rotation.

(28:16):
Jericho Simms, who was like the number four center for
the Knicks a couple of years ago. He's in the road.
My roster is not good enough and it's not going
to be good enough. And I understand I am not
a guy. Listen, you guys know this. I'm from Kansaity, Missouri.
I'm not into trying to, you know, force guys out

(28:42):
of small markets. And Giannis has two guaranteed years left
on his contract with Milwaukee before a player option. But Jannis,
if it is, it's been a long time since Giannis
won a playoff game. The last playoff game Yannis won

(29:05):
was on the court for a win was the twenty
twenty two Eastern Conference Semifinals Game four, Game five to
go up three to two on Boston. The next year,

(29:25):
they lost to the Heat in the first round in five.
He missed the one win. The next year he was
injured for the playoffs. This year, they're down oh two,
and I just I don't know the right places for Giannis.

(29:48):
And I'm not saying he definitively is going to ask out,
but I don't know how credibly he can feel about
the Bucks as contenders next year, when Dame turns thirty five,
brook is thirty seven. They they traded a bunch of
their stuff to win that championship. They then made probably

(30:12):
a trade they would like back, in the Dame trade,
if for no other reason, then it facilitated Boston getting
Drew Holliday and they're stuck now. I know people say,
you know Brooklyn has been preparing for Yannis. I I
get that. Why if you're Brooklyn you'd want it. If

(30:34):
you're Yannis, how does that make you closer? It probably doesn't.
There are not many teams that have the stuff required
to get Yannis that then would have enough stuff left

(30:55):
to compete for a championship. Oddly, this is where sorry
salt in the wounds. I don't mean to do it.
If Dallas had played it out this year with Luca

(31:16):
and then this summer said you know what, we don't
like him, we think he eats and drinks too much,
and maybe this year they get popped in round one.
I don't think they would have whatever. And in that
alternate universe where Kyrie's not playing forty some minutes a

(31:36):
game and has this super high workload right before the
ACL injury, maybe Kyrie doesn't have the ACL. If Dallas
calls Milwaukee and Luca for Jannis won for one, that's
a conversation. And if you're honest, you're like, oh, oh, okay,

(31:56):
I have Kyrie. We have these good Ciners that that's interesting,
but that's obviously gone. So you look around. Cleveland could
create a package that they could still compete at a
super high level. Boston obviously could, but Boston, I don't.

(32:19):
That's not the business Boston is going to be in.
The Knicks fired their gun early to get Michale Bridges
and Karl Anthony Towns. Oddly, the Pacers are an interesting one.
But do we think Yannis is gonna force his way
out of one small market for another. There's always the

(32:45):
Miami smoke. Miami would have nothing left like Jannis and
Tyler hero Is assuming Bams in the trade. That doesn't
get you there. So I think it's a weird spot
where I don't see the obvious move that puts Yannis

(33:09):
in a better position. Than the one he's in right now,
So maybe that leads to him staying. But man, oh man,
I cannot imagine. Jannis feels realistically like this team is
even close to being close. And so those are my

(33:34):
takeaways from night What was that? Night four of the
NBA Playoffs? Tonight is a nice night to potentially, you know,
take your significant other, your kids, or whomever out for
dinner and just be like, we just got to be

(33:55):
home by around nine thirty if you're on the East Coast.
Magic Celtics tonight, even without Tatum, the Magic are not
gonna be able to score ninety points nineties certainly not
ninety five points. The Celtics will win. Heat Calves is
a don't need to watch, and then Warriors Rockets will
be awesome. But Magic Celtics heat Calves are two early

(34:17):
ones that I think you're safe skipping. And then Tomorrow night,
and it is Tomorrow Night's weird in this regard. Nick's
Piston seven o'clock TNT Awesome, thunder Grizzlies nine to thirty TNT,

(34:37):
Why Nuggets Clippers ten o'clock NBA TV Sure feels like
if you can, you should flipflop those two and put
Nuggets Clippers on TNT. And again, most people who have
TNT at this point probably have NBA TV, but it's
still they. I think they misjudged what the real people

(35:01):
might be like. Ah, the Thunder deserve a prime spot
it once the playoffs actually start for them, they might.
But tonight one big game Warriors Rockets, absolute, unequivocal, literal
must win for the Rockets. If you're watching this on YouTube,
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(35:24):
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See you guys on TV in a few hours or maybe,
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preview show. One of our favorite bits, we break out

(35:46):
the fake phones. Demon's will be here for that. See
you guys then, What's Right