Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective - Dame To Return? + Surprise Playoff Sleepers?

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

Brian Windhorst is joined by ESPN's Michael C. Wright and Ohm Youngmisuk to react to Damian Lillard’s potentially surprising playoff return as well as some unique underdog scenarios in the Warriors-Rockets & Clippers-Nuggets series. Then, the Minnesota Star Tribune's Wolves beat writer Chris Hine joins the show to talk about his new book on Anthony Edwards and Ant's unique path to the NBA before talking the expectations for Minnesota against the Lakers with Luka. Plus, a special thank you to give out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Hello, welcome the HOOP Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Thursday afternoon slash evening, depending on where these folks are.

Joining me from San Antonio, Texas, where he's soon off to Houston for the start of the Rockets Warriors series. It's our man, Michael C. Corleone Wright. What's up, what up? What up? I'm not going to say howdy partners, even though I'm in Texas. Even though you're more Texan than our alleged Texan. This is true. Absolutely. All right, joining us from San Francisco, California, where I saw him on NBA today, and he was artfully shot so that you could see that he has been upgraded to a spacious suite in the bay right now. I'm sorry you have to leave that and go to Houston to cover the series. Om Young Wusuk. What up, Wendy? Greetings from the, let me get this, the name right, the three-bay suite, hospitality suite and the Marriott Marquis.

Oh, three bays. Yeah, I mean, I do have a, I do have a nice, you know, now that I live in San Francisco in hotels because I cover the lawyers from Los Angeles, the Marriott Marquis and the J.W. Marriott have been very, very nice to me. And I get upgraded to a lot of different suites with different views. And last two that I've been here, the Marquis, I have a sweeping view of the bay right behind, like, you know, I can see the Metrion and the Metrion, Sony Center. and then past that, the water and where the baseball stadium is and where chases.

It's great. Gorgeous. Well, I'm not going to shout out a hotel brand, but, you know, there's a hotel that I stay here in L.A. like 50 to 70 nights a year for the last decade. And I have an incredibly average room right now. All right. Let's get focused on the NBA. So we had a pretty, look, I don't know if I want to say surprising because the Bucks

have been saying for weeks that they thought Dame Lillard was going to get clear to come back and play for some time of the playoffs with his books. blood clot. I just couldn't believe it because, first off, people don't tell the truth when it comes to injuries in the playoffs. Secondly, I just know from covering blood clots and having a blood clot myself like a decade ago, that once you get put on blood thinners, it's not easy to get off of them. And it's, you know, people want to keep you on them. But I will say, Dame's agents, the Bucks, they said all along, they would say they were optimistic. And it turns out that Dame actually had started taking blood thinners before they identified the clot, which I'm sure there's a story there.

I'm sure he will give an interview on it, maybe by the time this podcast comes out. And that fact, with the early detection and whatever they did with him at the Mayo Clinic, because these were Mayo Clinic doctors, guys, the Bucks have gotten nothing but bad news when it comes to playoff health for the last three years. Chris Middleton, breaking or hurting his wrist. I remember when he put his hand on the floor and fell on the floor in the first round series three years ago. Two years ago, Janus was hurt in the playoffs.

Then last year, right at the end of the regular season, remember Janus took the ball on the inbound started running up the court and like keeled over, hurt his calf muscle. He missed the series. He honestly played two playoffs games the last two years. And I thought this is going to be another story of that. And Dame is bad. He's not going to play in game one over the weekend, but he's back to practicing. So I would, you know, I'm not going to assume anything, but I would highly suspect that you would see him next week at some point. Oh, and that's a potentially game-changing development in the before the first round series even begins. Wendy, this is the quickest any athletes ever come back from a blood clot, right? I mean, it's not that, you know, someone's out there

keeping track, but I think this is the quickest we've ever seen anyone come back in the NBA. For sure. I mean, I mean, Michael Wright didn't, when, when Victor Wenbanyam was diagnosed, they were like, he's done for the year. Like, that was kind of, that's kind of standard. Yeah, it was automatic. And there's, like, as a matter of fact, season finale at the end of the game, they're throwing T-shirts into the stands and everything, you know, just celebrating the crowd that showed up. And if you watched Victor Wemeyama, the man was throwing those t-shirts

with his left hand. Not that right shoulder where he just had this blood clot issue. So it's still an issue for him, even though he's saying that he's over it and everything. But you can tell he's definitely favoring that area. So yeah, this is very quick for Dame. Well, Victor Wemeyama had surgery

to get rid of the blood clot. He didn't he have like, what's that? He's not telling us that. We definitely point blank ask him during the end of season interviews or whatever, and he wouldn't say whether or not he had surgery. All right, well, I'll leave that alone for now, but I thought he had surgery to, like, fix the rib

or something, but, okay, I'm not going to step in anything that I can't step out of, so I'll just leave it alone with that. But anyway, Olme, big development in the Eastern Conference playoffs. You guys are focused on the West, but I would be remiss if I didn't tackle that development here. So we'll see when Dame comes back. All right, I do want to talk about the series you guys are covering. The Warriors win in the play-in the other day.

We talked about it a lot on the pod. You know, this Warriors has been a sort of a roller coaster for the last, you know, 10 days all. And they played so well to get in position. And they lose three of the last five games, including that home loss to the Spurs. That was a major setback there. That ends up, you know, basically putting them into a winner being the playing for the last game of the season. They lose the Clippers. Playing game comes right down to the final seconds.

So where do you think that the. that the Warriors are after playing so great for like, you know, six, day, seven weeks and then kind of maybe not looking as great over the last like seven to ten days. They're definitely not playing their best basketball entering the playoffs. They're trying to kind of rediscover that. The last time they probably played at their best, they were in a four game in six-night stretch where they won at Memphis, beat the Lakers, came back on a back-to-back, beat the nuggets at home, but then were soundly beaten by the Houston Rockets in the game where the Rockets had just decided, we're going to take it to you guys physically and beat you guys up

and beat up Steph. And what you saw was Steph have like a three point outing was one of his worst games of the season. But they were not to make excuses for them, but they're definitely tired and exhausted. They had played high level playoff type of games and they had just come off like a two week stretch on the road. Now, I think what Steve Kerr is doing is in these last two games, which were the two biggest games of the year for the Warriors, he's decided to shorten his rotation. Jonathan Camingo has logged DMPs, basically going with guys that he was like,

we won without Cominga when he was out. This is what was working. Let's get back to that. That doesn't mean that Camingo, we're not going to see Camingham the series. Caminga, I think, averaged like 23 points and nearly seven rebounds against Houston this season. But really, I think they needed this time off.

Steve Kerr finally admitted it after the playing game that we desperately needed these four days off to kind of get Steph's thumb right, to get Jimmy right. He took that shot to the quad from Kauai. Drayman is banged up. He's been playing now undersized center for like the last two plus months. But they certainly feel, Wendy, as you know, in a seven-game series, they feel they can beat anyone. I feel like they have to think that their championship experience is going to come into play here against Houston, which really doesn't have a ton of like crazy playoff experience.

And so I think they like this matchup, but if you look at it, Houston has all the young, athletic, long wings, tough defenders to throw it Steph and Jimmy. They can rebound inside with Shangoon and Stephen Adams. Draymond has had difficulties at times going up against these bigger centers trying to rebound. And certainly, turnovers is probably going to be maybe number one on Steve Kerr's list because they had 20 turnovers last time they faced Houston and that absolutely killed them. As great of a player as stuff is, as amazing as he is, all the records, all the accomplishments, he just turns it over, man.

He just turns the freaking thing over. He, he, he, for all the awards and honors and everything that he, that he has brought Steve Kerr, Steve gets down to his last nerve on turnovers, you know, and by the way, like, in the, in the gold medal game in France, before he had those incredible array of three-pointers, he had a couple of horrendous turnovers. I mean, like, for some reason, and the Warriors go is stuff. For some reason, man, he just wants to turn that ball over sometimes. But it's either here nor there.

So, Mike, Houston is probably annoying to them, not favored by the sports books in this series. I think it's just the second time in 30 years. I'm not, I think it's pretty close and maybe it will swap around. And look, there's some guys on the rockets who are not afraid to, you know, put their chests out. So what do you think the rockets are feeling about? Because by the way, them getting the number two seed is one of the great accomplishments of the regular season. Now, granted, the regular season accomplishments only going to matter so much. They earned this number two seed. All these teams beaten up on each other. They earned their way

the number two seed despite having some injury challenges throughout the middle of the season. And, you know, people are like, oh, how do you think it'll be when the Lakers play against the Warriors in the second round? Like, you know, I'm trying not to disrespect the Rockets. I'm sure I've been guilty of it at times. But like, how do you think the Rockets are feeling about, you know, what people are thinking with going into this is a matchup? Well, they feel like what they are. They feel like underdogs. And that has been the mentality that they've had all season long under EMA Udoka. And it's just funny, since we're talking about dogs, I got to hang out with EMA at the Rockets, a sparkling new practice facility. It's really nice, by the way. And we were talking,

and, you know, Ema was telling me, he's like, you know, all these teams like to talk about how we have dogs on our teams. He said, but are those dogs pit bulls or poodles? He's like, we like to think we got a bunch of pit bulls. That's what we bring to you using. And if you're not a pit bull when you come here, we will nurture it out of you. So, you know, they feel like underdogs, but at the same time, EMA knows what wins in the playoffs, you know. I mean, he's been an assistant in Philly with Brett Brown. He's been an assistant in Brooklyn. He's been a head coach of the Boston Celtics. He knows what he's been with pop. He knows what wins. And he's like, it's all about consistency. It's all about sharpness. The team that makes the fuel.

mistakes is going to win these games. And also, it's about physicality because, you know, as you know, Brian in the playoffs, the game is not as much up and down as it is in a regular season. It's a half-court game and it's officiated differently. And so E-May likes their chances in that department as far as physicality, but he expressed some concern about, you know, can we be consistent enough? Can we do the boring thing over and over and over? Because that's what's going to win you games. I mean, let me take you back to 2022 when EMA was the head coach of the Celtics. If you remember, we were in Boston and I believe the Celtics were up to one in that series and it had some momentum because they up to that point, Jason Tatum hadn't played a Jason

Tatum game. So you're thinking, okay, if they have a chance to win this game and go back to San Francisco up three one, they got the series. But if you remember, Steph Curry went for like 43 points. He went crazy that night. And as they were leaving the court, like the way TD Garden is set up, there's a spot where the teams have to walk right by each other. And at that point, they sort of knew. I'm talking about the Celtics or at least E. May and the coaches staff sort of knew, like, Golden State Warriors think they have this thing.

He said the way that they were talking to them and stuff, and I promise you, E. May, you dope, has not forgot about any of that stuff. And I guarantee you, he takes that into this series, too. Yeah, I covered that Celtics run. learned a lot about E-May on that run. And that, you know, Jerry West, the late-great Jerry West, who was one of the great competitors of all time, he said, you know, he rolled his eyes and people talked about being a dog. He's like, I don't care about dogs. I want to be a wolf. E-May is a wolf over there, man. Because I say that, because you know, like, the glare, the wolf

eyes, whew, send me chills. He gives you those eyes. The other thing about E-May, the two coaches that I like watching in the huddles are my favorite when I'm at the arena are Tibbs and Emay because Tibbs, he's always cranky. And I've talked about this before. Tibs doesn't meet with his assistants before a timeout. Like that was like a Phil Jackson thing. Maybe he's told him somebody else. But you know, it's standard in the NBA. There'd be a timeout. The coaches huddle. Sometimes the coaches don't even talk. They seriously don't even talk to each other. But sometimes they'll go over stuff. But they let sort of let the players get some water, dry off, whatever, they sort of let him cool down for about 30 seconds. And then the coach comes in,

no, no, no, not with TIPS. As soon as the guys are on the, on the bench, Tibbs has the clipboard and he's sitting down in front of them. Emey gets into his guys in the huddle like nobody else. You talk about accountability. You screw up on a rotation and there's a timeout. Your accountability ain't coming on the film session. It's coming right now in the huddle with those wolf eyes. And, you know, their respect that Eme gets from his guys, let's allow us him to do that. Wendy, don't forget, Eme got into it with Steph in the last game. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.

He walked on the floor. At that point, I believe, Draymond Green was kind of like towing the line against Shangoon. He had had a couple run-ins with him. And then all of a sudden, E-May makes like a B-line. Like, as they're walking off the floor at halftime, the warriors are going out this way, the rockets go out this way and EMA purposely walks toward the warriors before heading out this way and has words with Steph. And to your other point, Mike, like, and I was there in that finals against Boston,

the warriors are probably going to feel the same way against the rockets that, yes, while the rockets have some vets like Fred Van Bleet, my guy Jeff Green over there to kind of bring that experience, the warriors are going to feel that they have the experience to win big games. so that if these games are close, they are going to feel like their experience from Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, and Steph Curry is going to get them over the hump.

Remember, like, early in the season, they played an in-season tournament game that was about as competitive as I've seen. Both teams really wanted to win that game. The Warriors were dying to win that game. This is pre-Jimmy. This is December 11th or something like that. In the final six minutes,

it was playoff basketball, but neither team could score. And Steph was almost like on an island by himself as Houston just kept beating him up and beating him up, and there weren't any calls for step. Now that they have Jimmy, they're going to feel that they can score those points.

And if they get the Rockets into a close type of game like that in the final six minutes, they're definitely going to feel they can pull those games out with their experience. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that, you know, Udonis Haslam,

who, you know, was on the heat as a Jimmy Butler teammate for a long time talks about, is that the way that you can do anything with Jimmy is you've got to put size on him. Now, Jimmy's going to still defeat it a lot. It's not like this is the first time. This has been said. But, you know, he talked about how,

when Jimmy had issues in the playoffs with the heat, it was when he had to deal with a guy, you know, 6-8 who could match him physically because Jimmy is a big, strong guy. You're correct, Mike, about how in the playoffs things slowed down. Like there's two things about playoff games that no matter what anybody wants to say, like 22 years have taught me this, and it's just true. I don't care how fast you play in the regular season. I don't care how fast you say you're going to play.

I don't care what your game plan is. I don't care what it looks like in the first quarter of game one, it slows down in the playoffs. The game slows down. Okay, maybe if you play at 95 miles an hour in the regular season, you slow down to 80, you're still going fast. Maybe if you play at 75 miles an hour in the playoffs, you go down to 65, whatever, the game slows down.

I don't care what anybody says. It's just the absolute truth. Secondly, rotation shrank. Again, not talking about game one. I'm not talking about in the second quarter of game two when the team's up 17. I'm talking about when it matters. when elimination is on the line or you are in deep trouble games 4, 5, 6, 7, the coaches get tight.

There's fewer guys that they trust. I'm not talking about they don't put a guy out there for a minute or two. They only trust seven guys sometimes. Sometimes they trust five guys. Sometimes they trust three guys. That's just the way that it is. And Houston, I feel, while they may not have star power like Steph and Jimmy Butler, Houston has been built, that roster has been built for those types of games.

Because that's when a guy like Amen Thompson can matter because defense. That's when a guy like Dylan Brooks, can matter. That's when a guy like Jabari Smith matters because of his size. That's when a guy like Fred Van Vleet, who's very mentally tough matters. So Mike, I think you're right. I think, you know, Jimmy and Steph, it's possible that those guys might be able to just be great. They may be able to lift their games up higher than anybody on the Rockets can. And that, and that has happened. The Houston fans have certainly seen that because I've been at some of the playoff games in there where Steph or Clay or Durant's star was too high. But the Rockets are

truly designed and they are coached by a guy who coaches during the year for this type of situation. Absolutely. And that's one of the things that when I was talking to EMA at practice, he was just telling me like one of the things we're trying to do is sort of gain that consistency that wins in the playoffs. But at the same time, we need to make sure that we lean into our identity as a physical team is going to rough you up, like for 48 minutes. And so I think that, they're trying to do a combination of both things. And I think the experience in the past of him, you know, coaching against Steph and the Warriors and the finals, those things come into play in this series. I think the Rockets are younger, obviously, bountier. They also sort of have,

you know, those guys like Fred Van Ville, Dylan Brooks. We haven't even really talked about Dylan Brooks. And I'm guessing they're going to throw Dylan Brooks on Jimmy Butler. And, you know, like Jimmy's probably going to win most of those matchups. But are you, telling me that Dylan Brooks is not going to get up under that man's skin at some point in this series, I can almost guarantee you that that's going to happen. This is going to be a very chippy series and fun to watch. But you know, you mentioned Steph in Houston. For whatever reason, man, Steph turns it on when he plays in Houston. And they're very well aware of that. And so that's going to be a problem. That's something that like what I'm kind of wondering is whether

is how they go about it. Like you're going to throw a man Thompson on him and I'm, And obviously earlier this month, a million holes in what one of 10 or something like that. It was a great performance. But can you do that for seven games? Can you do that in a series? And so I wonder if they sort of switch it up and throw different looks at Steph just to sort of keep them off balance. But to me, there's a lot of tactical things in this series that I really want to kind of pay attention to. By the way, so after that game, the loss to Houston, Jimmy was asked about the defense on Steph.

And Jimmy said, yeah, if that's what you're going to. you want to call it. Really, I've never seen any individual be fouled as much as Steph has been fouled. So he basically said that Houston's defense was just fouling step all the time. One thing I would say about the playoffs slowing down as well, Steve Curris has admitted this like in the last three to four weeks that since they've acquired Jimmy Butler. They've become more of an isolation team to take advantage of Jimmy's strengths. And so now that changes them where, yes, they're always this team that's always moving and trying to get Steph to relocate and come. coming off screens and all this stuff and the beautiful Golden State basketball.

But then you've got ISO Jimmy. And I think that's added another element to them that could help them in the playoffs here. And the other thing I say is maybe they found a formula in these last two games, which were must-win games, just they lost to the Clippers, but might have played one of their best, if not their best game of the season. That game was such a high-level game between those two teams. Jimmy Butler scores, I think, 24 points in the first three quarters. and then Steph has 18 in the fourth of that Clippers loss.

Then in the play in against Memphis, Jimmy has 34 in the first three quarters, and Steph has 15 in the fourth. If Jimmy can take over the first three quarters and keep Steph fresh for the fourth and let Steph do his thing, and then you see kind of like Jimmy take that step back in the fourth quarter, he's still going to try to get to the free throw line,

something that they absolutely need. But it still plays all 12 minutes of the fourth, but let Steph be the guy making all the shots. That's probably the way that they're going to have to play to try to keep Steph fresh in the fourth. And that's one of the reasons it was important to get Jimmy Butler. I mean, that's just a core reason. But the officiating is interesting that you brought up

because you know Draymond's going to be working that aspect of it. And you know that the rockets are going to need to play physical. If they can't play physical, it's going to undermine what they're going to do. So when do you remind me who the winner might play in the next round, potentially? Well, I guess it depends on whether the Lakers, are going to win. But, you know, in theory, they're playing the Lakers' Wolves winner. So, yeah, I would say the conspiracy theory that Houston Rockets fans would probably say is that if calls don't go their way, the NBA would want to see a Steph LeBron's second round matcher.

Trust me, we're going to have Chris Hine from the Minneapolis Star Tribune on later in the show. He's out here covering the Wolves Lakers series. Trust me, the wolves fans are already there. They're already up, you know, they've got, you know, Agita about having to face Luca again. Now they're all worried about the officiating because they were, the Wool's fans are still upset about the officiating last year in that series. And now they're worried about the, you know, I'm so I think the Wools fans and the Rockets fans can unite here and work together. We're going to be talking a lot about that series. I think it's going to be a long one. More Hoop Collective podcast after this.

A couple other teams that you follow closely, home, are the Nuggets and the Clippers. These are the teams, you know, you've been spending a lot of times the last couple years with the Nuggets and the Clippers. This would normally be your series. But our girl, Momo, Ramona Shelburne, is going to be covering that series. On that game on Sunday with the Clippers going in and winning in San Francisco was this high level of a play as a regular season game as I saw all year. I was so impressed the way the Clippers handled their business in that game. And it really led me to believe that this series with the Nuggets

who obviously have home court, obviously have Yokic, finished strong after the coaching change. it's such a toss-up series to me, regardless of the seeds, because the clippers were so strong down the stretch and looked so, they looked so good. I mean, seeing them win that game where Steph had it going and Jimmy had it going for those three quarters, kind of leads me to believe that the clippers can almost achieve anything.

I'm not going to overreact, but like that series was special. I still go back to when I sat at the Intuit Dome in the sweep with Steve Bonwinter for the season started. And Steve had told me, we're going to surprise people. We're going to be better than people think. We're going to be competitive. We're going to be a playoff team.

And I remember like you, it seems like a long time ago, but people need to be reminded this. Paul George, when he walked away for nothing, there were people in the league being like, what are the Clippers doing? Why did they not take anything back? And of course, there's a lot of like cap implications and all that stuff.

But this was the lowest expectation. That's still being adjudicated the way, you know, PG and the Clippers, even the Clippers players are gone back and forth and the fans, of course. Yeah. I mean, look, this was the lowest expectations that the Clippers have had in the Kauai Leonard era entering a season. Some people are wondering if they were going to make the playoffs. You certainly knew that Tailu is a good coach and always gets the best out of the least that he has. But remember, we didn't know when Kauai Lennard was going to play again.

After USA basketball cast this like incredible mystery around. Very, very clearly did not put anything resembling a timeline on it. Yeah. And then in training camp, he was not ready, did not play in training camp. camp and did not come back until January 4th. But then we saw James Harding kind of take over the team, keep them together while Kauai was out. Norman Powell merged into a legitimate all-star for that first couple months.

And Zoo, Big Zoo, has become a force inside, not just offensively, but you can make the argument as Tim Bontens, I think, voted him as a defensive player in the year. He has been the anchor of what has been an elite defense by Jeff Van Gundy. So now when you see, like the Clippers have been saying all season long, listen, if we can get Kauai healthy. Kawhi and James, when they're healthy in the playoffs, they're very good playoff performers, especially Kauai. He doesn't lose in the playoffs. And so the whole thing is, can we keep Kauai healthy in the playoffs? Now, as Kauai is ramped up, Wendy, you and I've seen this. We talked, we were there in Phoenix in that game one when Kauai looked like, I believe the word we

we used was Apex Kauai. And he looked incredible. And I remember, you remember he got hurt and then played game two, and then his knee started swelling up, and then he was out. the last two postseason has only played two games. But after that playoff series against Phoenix, Phoenix won, and then they went on the plate, the Nuggets. And I remember talking to Nuggets people who were saying, telling me, he would have been trouble. And so now you're getting that matchup that if Kauai is good as this is what David

Adelman, this is what David Adelman said. I don't know if it was today or yesterday. You know, he was like, has anybody been watching Kauai lately? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Wendy, I was going to say like, as good. as Kawhi was against the Warriors on Sunday. I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I think he has another level that he can take it to in the playoffs, like a little notch up. And I think that's probably sometimes why he ends up getting hurt. He just goes so hard, play so hard in the playoffs.

But I think he can take it up even another notch. And I think that's scary for the Nuggets. Defensively, this Nuggets team has not been as great as past teams. And certainly that was an issue that led to Michael Malone's firing. Nicole Yolkich, obviously playing. at like the best basketball he's ever played at and that's for a three-time MVP that's incredible to say. Jamal Murray though is going to be the key because if Jamal Murray is healthy which I think Rick I mean David Adam and said today that this is probably the health as we've seen him. He looks great. That's a very important update. Yeah. He said that he said that Jamal Murray looks great. If they can get playoff Murray anywhere close to bubble Murray, remember we forget this. He was one half of

one of the most prolific playoff duos in history. Yokic and Murray, when they're together and doing their thing, they are awfully tough to stop. But of course, the clippers have a lot of wing defenders they can throw at people. And that's where I think this series is going to be such a fascinating series. You just hope that Kauai can say healthy. Because if Kauai can say healthy, we haven't seen, you know, prime Kauai in a long time. And we were kind of robbed of it last year in the playoffs when he came back and just wasn't himself.

So it would be great to see Kauai get back to that level game. Yeah, Mike Wright was on that series with us where we saw, last time we saw Kauai looks so good. The Clippers came into Phoenix, who was a 64-win team that year, I think, and one game one and looked like there was really going to be something going on there. But you know, Mike, that if Kauai is at his best, like the kind of the thing about this series is when Kauai is at his best,

you know, he really is hard to handle in the playoffs. And when Murray and Yokets are at their best, they're hard to handle the playoffs. Like, it's, I think it's really compelling. Oh, definitely. I mean, just, I was looking at Kauai's last five games. I think he's averaging like 52% from the field, almost 50 from three, two point two steals averaging almost 27 points. I've seen this Kauai before being here in San Antonio.

And Kauai is cooking right now. But another guy that I feel like we don't or we haven't given enough credit to is James Harden. Yeah. I was going through my, you know, all, you know, the voting and everything. And I just kept going over like the all-NBA and just kept going like, should we have James Hart? Should I have James Harden known here?

Because he has played that well. That man is being cooking. But, you know, just going back to Jamal Murray, like, just think about all the people that the clippers can throw onto Jamal Murray. I mean, you got Derek Jones, Jr., you got Chris Dunn, you got Kauai. You've got guys that you can throw at him. And if you can sort of disrupt that two-man game between Jamal Murray and Nicola Yokic, then you might be cooking with some high grease.

So I don't know about this series, but it just seems to me that the Clippers have more just, like you've got three guys legitimately that at any point in the game, they can go get you a bucket. And I'm not sure that Denver has that on their team. So I'm not saying that the Clippers have more star power here, but I am saying that they have more guys that you can trust in clutch situations, I think, than Denver at this point. I'm curious to see how Aaron Gordon handles Kauai Leonard. You know, if I'm not mistaken, like when they first got, when they first got him, AG, didn't they get him as sort of the guy that they thought would be able to guard Kauai in the playoffs? Yeah, I mean, one of his first

games that really set Denver on a great path toward the championship was against the Clippers and Kauai Leonard and had a great game. So Aaron Gordon's defense was crucial in the title run two years ago. And it was Aaron Gordon who slowed down Jimmy Butler at long last. I mean, again, a defender with size. Aaron Gordon has amazing size. Like that's that's even bigger. It looks like a lionbacker.

Yeah, he's even bigger than your average big wing. By the way, so Mike, to your point about James Hardin, in April when they went undefeated, 25.9 points, 10.1 assists, 5.9 rematch. He's 40% three-point shooting, and he hit two huge monster threes at the start of overtime against the Warriors and that must-win game. If he plays anything close to that in the playoffs, the Clippers will be at another level. Remember, like last year, he struggled in those final two games. So did Paul George. But I believe he went like one for 13 from three in those last two losses in Dallas.

So that's something that obviously is always going to be on people's minds about how James performs in the playoffs. if he can perform the way he's been doing now in the regular season here toward the end here in big games, that's going to be big for them. And then Wendy, Big Zoo is about as successful as anybody against Nicole Yokin. Yeah, I don't know if you can call it success. I would say he's had some of the most success, but I wouldn't say successful. 45%. Like you hold them 45%. Let's get this ESPN stats and information research here.

Zubach is the only player to hold Yokka. below 45% shooting among those who have defended him for 100 plus shots as the closest defender. That's only like 20 guys. So Zhu is number one in that department. Of course. That number is 44.9% though. That's 45%, man. That's 45%.

Nonetheless. If you hold Yokish to get a little bit joker, okay? If you can hold Yokish to 45, you've done great. I'll give him 45. I'll give him 46. All right. Thank you, Oam. Thank you, Mr. Wright.

I really appreciate your time. I know I'll be talking to you guys throughout this long playoff run. Pace yourself. May you all get wonderful hotel upgrades. Got a special guest coming up next year on the Hoop Collective. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. Okay, welcome back to Hoop Collective.

Special guest here with me, as promised, a guy who is one of the best beatwriters in the NBA and in town because I guess the Timberwolves are here. I just know we talk about the Lakers. I didn't remember who they were. playing, what's the difference? What does it matter who they're playing? Lakers, Lakers, Lakers. Chris Hine from the Minneapolis Star Tribune here to cover the Lakers' Wolf series. But the reason I had him on the pod, because as if we need more Laker talk, is because he has a brand new

book out on Anthony Edwards and the incredible journey of a rising star. Chris Hine, here it is right here. You can get it various booksellers. I've read large parts of it. And, well, first off, Chris. Welcome. How are you? Thank you. It's good to be here. Appreciate it. It sounds like a line that you would have just to sell a book, The Incredible Journey. But what I read with this book that sticks out to me is just how bleeped up Ant's childhood was. And I'm sure that story has been told in some pieces, but I don't think it's ever been told like you tell it here. I appreciate that. It's a lot that he had to overcome to get to the MBA. You know, his mother and his grandmother, Yvette, and Shirley were his ultimate cheerleaders growing up.

And I think a lot of his personality comes from them, the confidence, the positivity that you see. You know, that was that was them. That's what people told me that they were like for him and his life. They were always at his AU tournaments, always at his youth football games. And what he overcame was at 13, they passed away from cancer about seven months apart from each other. And based on what you were writing in here, I'm not sure. And again, he was 13. He wasn't 23.

Right. But I don't think he understood how sick they were. Maybe they didn't know how sick they were, or maybe they kept it from him. I think that may be the latter. Yeah. And I don't even think, you know, people close to him that, you know, grew up with him or that kind of kept an eye on him as he was growing up. I don't think they even knew how sick his mother and grandmother were. And so it took a little bit of everybody by surprise because, you know, I think it happened quickly as well.

You know, there wasn't much time between, you know, like the diagnosis and when they passed. His grandmother had always battled cancer off and on. And so, for instance, in her case, people in the book tell me, well, we thought she was going to make it through because that's what she always did. Yeah. And it just didn't work out that particular time. So at 13 years old, he loses, you know, the two rocks in his life. Yeah. his siblings, his three older siblings, were a big part in getting him through that.

And, you know, he refers to his sister Antoinette, who, you know, he lived with for a time as, you know, one of the, the backbones of the family and to help them get through it. And there was also this community of people who you will meet in the book that really helped kind of get to the finish line and get to the NBA. It was a community because he was kind of bouncing around. Yes. Like nobody, like, kind of knew what to do with them. I mean, I mean, it seems like he was well liked.

He was a well-liked kid because, I mean, look at his personality. I get it. But it wasn't like, oh, this is a basketball star. Like, also the other thing is like, it wasn't like, oh, my gosh, we got to take care of this kid. He's a basketball star. At 13 years old, he was not a basketball prodigy. He was not a high-ranked recruit. He was always very good at basketball.

And he played AAU, high-level AAU from a young age. But he was coming off the bench in early AAU days. And everybody thought football was going to be his athletic future. I mean, you look up some of them. of his youth highlights on YouTube. They're still up there. I compared him to like a young Derek Henry because he just towered over people and he was fast and he would truck them when he was running down the field. Absolutely. He was a great youth football player. But that's where everybody thought his future was going to be. Basketball was, I don't want to just say something he did, but it kind of

was. And so his life was kind of a constant toggle of football, basketball, you know, and a lot of the same families were involved in his life, you know, friends of his that he played football with or AAU basketball with. And so he got close to these families and they always kind of kept an eye out for him. You know, one of the guys you see in the Netflix documentary starting five, his uncle Drew, you know, Drew's been in aunt's life since he was like six, seven years old. And, you know, their son, his son played football with aunt. And then Drew drove aunt an hour each way to, Holy Spirit High School in the Buckhead area of Atlanta through harrowing Atlanta traffic every day, trying to get Anthony Edwards out of bed after playing video games till two in the morning.

Now that I can believe about Ann. That's the part of the Ann story. That is something that he's always done. Video games has always been a big part of his life. But, you know, somebody like Drew was instrumental in Ant's life and making sure that he had a ride, that he had a place to stay, you know, that he was getting from point A to point B, that he needed a ride. If he needed a ride to the gym, needed a ride to school. And there were a lot of people like that who, you know, you'll meet in the book.

So the book is not just aunt story, but it's a story of all these people that, you know, are still in his life, still play an important role in his life. He's got a, he's got a commercial out right now where his, I'm not sure who is. His best friend, Nick, Nick Maddox, yeah. Yeah, where he's obviously featuring his best friend. Yep. In the commercial, singing in the car, like to lift him up. So like. And personally, I kind of like singing that.

Because the way that Nick told me that they met and bonded and it's in the book is they were driving home from, they went to the same high school, Holy Spirit. They were driving home one day and they bonded over music. And specifically the Temptation song, Just My Imagination, which is an old school, old school song. Now, this is a surprise. This is what should be playing when he's like being introduced. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

So you wouldn't expect that like an old school song from like 1971. was something that these two teenagers in Atlanta in the year 2018 or whatever it was end up becoming best friends. But that was kind of the moment he said that they became friends. And that's another thing about aunt. He has an old soul, whether it's older music or older TV shows. But also in just the way that he can read people and the way that he can read a room. And he's always had this innate sense of who's had his best interests at heart and who hasn't.

And really from 13, 14, 15. He had to. He lost his mom and grandmother. You had to grow up really fast. So you had to have an innate sense of who really was looking out for you. And if you notice the people that he keeps close, it's a lot of those same people that are still close to him today that he trusts. And there's not a lot of new people that enter that orbit. Well, I believe that. That's what, you know, good MBA guys do.

So you can read all about Ann Edwards in this book. Just like that, that insight you're not getting on an average. By the way, I, you don't. one of my favorite things about aunt is, is his use in interviews of the word dope. He just used it. Just that word, not in any other word or anything. Well, he's, that's dope. He uses some other words, but like, I'm not, I'm almost not making a joke here.

Like, when he gets a question that sometimes, he just says, well, that's dope. Yeah. You know, hey, like, you're getting disrespectful. That's dope. Hey, what'd you think about that incredible 75 point game that it was dope? But in a way, I actually think it's kind of shrewd because it like sort of knocks people off. Like where do you go from there?

Right, right. You know, it's dope. I'll say we had a couple weeks ago when they played the, when they played Denver and Yokic went for 61 and that double overtime game. But the wolves won. The wolves won. Yeah. And, yeah, Ant had and Yokic had squared off, you know, two dozen times over the last three

years between playoffs and even the Olympics international play. He maybe would give something along those lines whenever you would ask Ann about Yokic. But the way that he spoke about Yokic after that 60 point game, I had never really heard him talk about Yokic in that way before, just almost awestruck. And he had never really been that way before. But coming off of that night, even after the Wolves win, he just couldn't believe what he had just seen. So sometimes you get him out of that's dope.

And that's when you really know, like, oh, he was really awestruck, really impressed with somebody. And he was, for instance, that night in Denver. What do you think we can expect to see from Ant in this series of the Lakers? I have to assume that they're planning on double teaming him. Coming into this, I think it's not just double teams, but I think it's going to be a mixture of things. That's what the wolves are getting ready for, whether it's doubling him, whether it's, you know, high wall. You know, we'll see what kind of coverages, JJ Redick and how the Lakers personnel wants to mix it up. But I think just the buzz around Minnesota is this is going to be the ultimate test of Anthony Edwards and his smarts as a basketball player, I think, and the ability to figure out what the Lakers are doing to see the game two, three steps ahead.

He's always had this innate sense and has stepped up huge in the playoffs each of the last three years. He plays well. Even when the wolves lose a series, he tends to. to play really well. This is, I think, is going to test him in a different way. And mentally, how will he process the game? And will he fight the urge to want to take over? Will he fight the urge to want to shoot a step back three with two guys in his face? You know, sometimes that urge does take over for him, especially late in games. So this is going to be about Anthony Edwards and how much really he's learned the game five years into his career. I think that's where this series is

headed for him. That's a great point. And the thing about it is, the Lakers, even though Aunt led the league in threes this year, because obviously he has really developed a shot. I think if we'd have said that in his second season, we would never believe that because that shot was, was, they wanted to take threes back then. They did. They did. And that's coming into the NBA, that was one of the knocks on him, too. I think he was under 30% when he was in Georgia from three point range, was this guy ever going to develop a consistent shot. And if there's one thing that he is taken personally, I think, ever since he was 14, 15 years old, he was. old, it's the knock that he can't shoot.

He has taken that really to heart, really personally. And I think that has driven him to become the shooter he is because he wanted to show people that he was more than just someone who just gets to the hoop. He was determined to show people that he could develop a really good jump shot and a lethal three point shot. And here he is now, year five, hitting the most threes in the season. Having said that, I would advise going to the basket. If he could in this series, because the Lakers just, you know, I mean, Jackson,

Hayes obviously can do it a little bit, but you're not playing them that much. And I think I don't think Jackson Hayes is going to see the floor that much. Well, that's just it. You know, rim protection and aunt, when there's not a lot of rim protection out there, he senses it and he knows that he has to attack it. And you see that with various opponents throughout the season, whether it's a team that just doesn't have a good big at the basket or if a starting center is out because of injury. He can sense when a team is lacking around the rim.

and he knows that he has to attack it, whether it's finishing at the rim or just getting to the foul line as a result of it. And it's one of the reasons why he had a really high number of free throw attempts this year, too. Really, his shot mix, and he likes shooting mid-range shots, but he's kind of given up the mid-range shots this year. And he's been very analytically sound in terms of his shot mix of getting to the rim or taking threes. He said he wants to rework on his mid-range game for next season, which is always a push and pull with the with the timber wolves and him. He feels like he needs that mid-range game. The Timberwolves are like,

you're fine shooting threes and going to the hole. Yeah, they're encouraging him to shoot three. Right, right, exactly. Absolutely. They're thrilled with his three-point shooting this year. Absolutely. I just want to ask you about Julius Randall, too, because I feel like he's a swing player in this series.

He has not had a spectacular playoff history. He has two years he played in the playoffs with the Knicks. he had a couple of good games, but he just, he didn't raise his game in the playoffs. And, you know, this year, when he came back from the injury, as he played better down the stretch, it was part of the reason why the wolves, who I think won 9 of 11 down the stretch, you know, if they're going to win this series, they need Julius Randall to be good. I mean, maybe great would be helpful, but they just can't have them not contribute. They're just going to need them, I think.

They will. I don't know how you see this series. you certainly have a much better feel of the wolves than I do. But I feel like Julius Randall, in addition to watching to see how Anne handles the defense, Julius Randall, his production, in a place where he's got a complicated relationship with, with the Lakers, how you think that could play out. It's interesting because one of Julius's strengths this year has been the ability to attract a crowd down low and pass out of it and create open shots for his teammates.

And I wonder with the Lakers personnel and guys like Rui and even LeBron maybe late in the game or something like that, they can be physical and maybe play him one on one. So he's got to, I think, try to find a mismatch or the matchup he likes and try to generate the double out of that. I think it's going to be a little harder in this series than it is in the regular season for him to maybe do what he was so good at, which was shift the defense around and make plays out of it. I think Julius deserves a lot of credit for how he's attacked this year with the wolves. He's got a player option, you know, and so essentially a contract year for him. For sure. And he came in and he has taken fewer shots than he took in in New York. Scoring numbers are down.

And he's embraced this kind of facilitator role with the wolves when it's a year where he can or should be getting paid. You know, at 30 years old, it might be the last, you know, real big payday that he may end up getting in the league. So I think, you know, a little hidden storyline of the wolf season is that Julius has played very selfless basketball in a time when maybe not a lot of guys would be selfless. And it's helped the wolves as a result. You said nine of 11, 17 and four in their last 21 games to get to the sixth seed. And he deserves a big credit for that because of how he's attacked, especially the second half of the season. What's the scar tissue situation with the wolves fans of Luca from last year? Because those were rough evenings at the Target Center that I was at.

I think there's a healthy fear. I think there's a healthy fear among the wolves fan base anyway because there just hasn't been a lot of success over the years. Right. So there's just a natural. And in Minnesota sports fans in general, there's a natural fatalism that exists in the minds of Minnesota sports fans that, what could go wrong, will go wrong, whether it's Gary Anderson missing a field goal in the Vikings. Right, right, you know, this is, you know, laid throughout Minnesota sports history.

So when Luca hits a shot in game, was that game two or game one, I forget which game it was of the Western Conference Finals, but it was almost like, yep, we expected this in some ways expected this to happen. So there's a healthy fear of this going into the series. There's a healthy fear of LeBron. I think there's a healthy fear of the officiating and how that may be one-sided coming out of the gate. I think that's a big concern I've heard just around town all week is, well, what is the officiating going to look like? If they let them play, which, you know, in this era of trying to bring physicality back into the game and when they made that switch halfway through last year to try to let more stuff go, I think that benefits a team like the Timberwolves that has some good perimeter defenders.

that like to get a little physical. So if they let them play, I think it's advantage wolves in this series. But if the whistle start blowing at a high rate, it's advantage of Lakers. Well, I am sure that Ant will take it easy. In stride. Yeah, I'm sure he will maintain his composure. That ejection he got in February during the first time he played this iteration of the Lakers, I'm sure it's a distant memory at this point.

Not even a thing at all. I will say this as a shout out, the NBA put out its list of officials for the first round. today and Scott Foster was on the list. Oh. Because, you know, he heard his calf and we weren't really sure. Like we don't, we don't, the referees don't put out injury reports. So Scott, we hope you're, we hope you're going to be ready to go. It figured, I was, I was thinking, you know, Chris Paul's like, oh, I'm out of the playoffs.

And Scott Foster, Scott Foster is in. Scott Foster's in. I thought maybe Scott and Chris could watch games together. Oh, that was going to be a great segment. That would be a great segment. Oh, 100%. I mean, you know, they would, you know, like, you know, mind the game. Scott and Chris could, you know, if they're not busy in the playoffs. From an official player stamp.

Oh, my God. I think that would create such an incredible bond. All right, Chris, thanks for stopping by. Good luck in the playoff front. Good luck with the book. Ant, the incredible journey of an NBA rising star by Chris Hine from Minneapolis Star Tribune. Check it out.

We only talked about a fraction of it. You know how compelling of a story Ann Edwards is. This is the most comprehensive thing that's been done. So check it out. All right. We'll be right back here on the hoop collective. Okay, thank you. I'm Young Masuk, Michael C. Wright, and Chris Hine. Before we go, I just want to take a second and acknowledge a departing teammate. I am both sad and happy, bittersweet that Cassidy Hubbard is leaving ESPN. She has been the definition of a great teammate. I can't tell you, you know, there's so many things that happen in the league where we all help each other. And Cass has helped me. with so many things over the years.

And like when I got pressed into having doing sideline duty a couple of times, like she basically like taught me how to do it. And so I think if you go down the line, there isn't anybody who she hasn't been so gracious with and so willing to give her time. She's been on our pod several different times and always been a big champion of mine and all the rest of the ESPN.com people over the years.

So Cassidy, we wish you the best of luck at your next spot. We're so happy for you. Thank you for everything. And we look forward to seeing you out on the NBA road soon. And that is it for the Hoop Collective. Thanks you to Jackson and Rafah, our producers. And we'll be talking to you early next week when the playoffs have gotten cooking.