The Thunder take the 2-0 lead on the Timberwolves by defeating them 118-103. Es Baraheni is joined by Jon Krawczynski of the Athletic to discuss the struggles of the Wolves and what they can to do turn it around. Then Es is joined by Andrew Schlecht to discuss the Thunder’s dominant win, Shai’s MVP and much more from OKC.Host: Es BaraheniWith: Jon Krawczynski and Andrew SchlechtExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson Moody Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
Good morning and welcome to the Athletic NBA Daily. Thunder strikes the Timberwolves. We've got John Krasinski of the Athletics to talk about it. OKC going up to nothing. Let's do it. Good morning, John. OKC picks up a 15 point win. Good morning to you, sir. Nice to see you. Yeah. Two wins away from the finals for OKC down 0-2 for Minnesota. And, you know, I thought they played a better game.
I thought the Timberwolves played overall a more sharp game than they did in game one, but it wasn't enough, and they couldn't withstand the second-half surge from OKC. Particularly, I think it was a strugglesome game from Julius Randle, who just couldn't get anything going offensively.
How hard is it for this team to be effective offensively for four quarters when it comes to Randle not being that guy on a night-to-night basis?
Yeah, I mean, it's it's really difficult because, you know, Julius has been so good for them all playoffs, really consistent. And I think he's averaging like 24 points before tonight, before the game. And and then he has six points left. Five rebounds, two for 11 from the field. He was shooting over 52% from the field coming into game two and just couldn't buy a bucket.
This is a team in the Thunder, a 68-win team in the regular season, the heavy favorite in this series. This is a game and a series where you need your stars. Anthony Edwards played well, was more aggressive in this one. He wasn't game one, but
When you don't have Julius Randle to kind of help with that physicality with just the bucket getting, it just really becomes very hard to keep up with the Thunder offensively. And that's what we kind of saw in that game. They just could not find enough buckets offensively. to keep up in the track meet with OKC when, when, when Randall's struggling.
Yeah. I thought Ant had a really good start to this game. Um, getting downhill, being aggressive. I mean, in game one, he only took one shot in the paint. He had four shots in the fourth, fourth quarter, uh, in the first quarter in the paint. So like the aggression was there for him to get downhill, uh, and try to assert himself, but the jumper wasn't falling on the other side.
One of nine from three, um, For him, it's balancing how much they're utilizing him off ball, trying to get him going as a guy who can attack closeouts and be a guy who can make plays without the ball in his hands and knocking down those catch and shoot looks. But also like being the guy on ball for them. What do they need from him moving forward in this series?
Yeah, I mean, it was a really good adjustment from him to attack the rim even more. I mean, Oklahoma City packs the paint, and they do everything they can to take that away. But I just think that Ant was hell-bent on getting there in Game 2, and he really just put the pedal to the metal, got downhill, and started to create things. And even...
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