ANT MAN APPRECIATION VIDEO 🤩 The next face of the NBA! Future of American basketball! | NBA Today

or maybe just avert your eyes as we head now to the Valley of the Sun this is game four between the Phoenix Suns and Minnesota Timberwolves Chan gum here to help me break this down Anthony Edwards just doing everything to Will his team remember no team led by more than six points entering the fourth quarter Anthony Edwards pulls up from three gets that one to go yeah the best thing that a player in the NBA can do straight up take over this was instant classic performances from Kevin Durant from Devin Booker but it was ant Edwards that showed the world that he has got game on both ends of the floor that was just an alltime block Brian wior great googly moogly look at this guy in this fourth quarter it was absolutely awesome to watch everyone at home get great googly moogly into a sentence by the end of the day Anthony Edwards once again elevates from three Nails it gets it to go the bench is fired up here Kevin Durant going to work but watch the switching here again again again you know what they say be connected be on a string that is the best defense in the NBA for a reason because they're committed to winning no matter what it takes well but this was the possession that if Aunt Edwards hadn't said I've arrived oh he did on that play Kendrick Perkins did this remind you of anything yes Michael Jeffrey Jordan you are the father Jesus Christ so this is myy now per this is my this is Mor this was a SC SC moment though 145 to play here Mike connley full head of steam just Barrels in collides accidentally of course with chis Chris Finch the head coach he goes down in pain here just take another look Finch would actually rupture his right Peller tendon he left the arena on crutches as you can see there and then Anthony Edwards putting the final touches on the win here and just holding up a 40 to the crowd letting everybody know sweep complete let's take a listen to Ant I was thinking 31 points in the second half you're not getting off the ball very much then right I mean they they wasn't I I will say they they stopped double teaming me like it was more of like you got to beat us so and I showed them like you need to double me so impressed with ant so impressed with ant um my favorite player to watch just grown so much since he came into the league at 22 just his love for the game just shines bright and that's something that's probably that's one of the reasons why I like him the most because he just loves basketball ball he's grateful to be in this position he's taken advantage of every opportunity he's gotten um love everything about ant everything honestly same and I have to keep reminding myself Chen he's 22 22 this is where his 40 points Stacks up against other players who are aged 22 or younger in a series clinching playoff win it's the most since his first round counterpart and personal goat Kevin Durant scored 41 to eliminate Denver 13 years ago you have to love that symmetry here let's dive into this this a little bit further Chan gum Brian wior Kendrick Perkins beaming in perk I want to start with you here what did the Timberwolves prove to you with this win well that they're legit title contenders within this series because a lot of people thought that the Phoenix Suns could possibly beat them in this series but what they showed is is that they could take it to another level right the role players showed that in this series we could be consistent offensively we know that they number one defense and by the way Adam Silva you don't have to look no more I know you've been searching for the next SP of the NBA where we have found him and Anthony Edwards this guy is spectacular and when you could carry as a young 22 year old and go on the road in two games and average 38 and put it on your shoulders to close them out there it go that's all that needs to be said and this young man right here he's ready for action he's ready for war and the Denver Nuggets if whenever they decide to close out the Los Angeles Lakers they better strap their shoes up he is the future of American basketball I you know I think John Morant still has a chance to to grab that Crown but as we've had this setbacks with J the last two years yeah this is where Anthony Edwards has moved in this was his first opportunity to have a closeout game and it was on the road and he was absolutely brilliant and the thing about him that is so great is that he plays both ends and he cares about both ends and he truly loves his teammates he is not a conventional leader but he is a very effective leader you watch how his team follows him you watch how he supports his team you know he had that quote early in the series they got Kevin Durant we got Jaden McDaniel I love that was funny but he was being serious this is how he views the game we got to see it play out last night and we're going to get to see it play out more and more in the coming years yeah takes a certain level of vulnerability to be great you've got to take the shots that other people don't want to take because you might be afraid and you learn by those shots and what we've seen is that he is willing to accept that challenge perk mentioned the 38 points per game in the postseason let's talk about the fourth quarter where he leads the NBA in postseason at 10.5 points on 67% shooting this is a franchise that a year or so ago was in the middle of an ultimate power struggle ant comes in everyone knows his t cat is there he's already certified as a great shooter Rudy comes in and he has you know that French bravado but also that bravado amounts in one of the best defenders this game has ever seen and he emerges at the age of 22 not only upping his game but showing he can lead and it takes a level of humility and just like listen to what we get from the press conferences he's real that's why I always say it's all about progress over Perfection he's not the perfect player but he's committed to progressing himself as an individual but also his team and it's just been so much fun to Anthony Edwards is certainly the head of the snake I agree with you if he is not the face of the league right now he is going to be in the coming years but this was a team than Minnesota Timberwolves that hadn't won a playoff series in 20 years had been the laughing stock of the league in a lot of ways and was more known for overlooking and not picking Steph Curry than anything else fast forward to today they have the brightest star in the NBA right now maybe outside of Victor wanyama and the sky is a limit we are talking about them as true contenders just a couple of years after we were all asking oh is the double big going to work Carl Anthony Town shot 53% on threes in this series period 53 and at his one of his Great Performances of his career last night got overshadowed a little bit by ant but towns with goar in foul trouble putting up that performance last night 11 of 17 shooting was huge to turn and say well this guy is our best offensive player carony towns you're seeing leadership in real time I mean for the first time since the Kevin Kevin gar that days Weir talking about the Minnesota Timberwolves as true contenders but what's still kind of so fascinating to me is that the sun swept the Timberwolves in the regular season but life it comes at you fast next thing you know they get swept when it matters the most and as you can see that doesn't happen too often take a listen to Deon Booker and Kevin Durant after their early playoff exit here hopefully everybody's feeling the same type of hurt um and you know it has to be fixed I have to be better Kevin has to be better Brad has to be better Coach has has to be better um if we're the leaders of the team we can't be out there unprepared yeah everything could be better what specifically why was there I won't go into specifics cuz I mean that's stuff that we'll talk about uh and like I said I don't want to be up here making excuses for what happened so we just deal with it and we'll figure it out as the family moving forward okay so I was looking through my notes I sat down with Matt esbia right at the beginning of the season the owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves he said the word win 13 times in 3 minutes he said Championship three times that means the man didn't go more than 12 seconds without referencing one of those two words so obviously this was not the team that was put together to get swept right in the first round how disappointing is this Kendrick for the Suns it's one of the biggest in my eyes the biggest disappointment you can't have a big three and Devin Booker Bradley Bill and Kevin Durant and not win one game in the series forget winning the series they got well and here's the thing right we've been questioning all season long about the leadership and I've been harping on that but you know the you know the funny thing about all of this is that I'm not the one to go looking for information sometimes information finds me and what I've been know what I noticed what we saw last night with the behavior of Bradley Bill and Frank voger we saw that right the the dab off of the slapping of the hand we saw the bad body language but this has been going on all season long led by Kevin Durant okay when you have a disconnect in the locker room where your two-time MVP two-time Finals MVP and your two-time NBA champion is not talking to your head coach because he's mad about the play calling and mad about not being the number one option this is what happens not everybody else in the organization or on the team feel like they could disrespect Frank voger or or drown him out for us listening to his scheme or his strategies and so when I think about that you have to if you're the head coach you have to have the support from the front office the people at top to be able to go in there and demand the locker room but Frank voger does not have that and it's probably looking dangerous for him it's looking dangerous everywhere out there in the Valley of the Sun it's looking a little scorched Earth it's looking a little burnt but to me when I look at this there's no reason that Booker Beal and Durant should be minus 51 over the course of this entire Series right that doesn't make sense so I can understand Kevin Durant's frustrations I guess you can say a little bit like I didn't play to my strengths but you still had what did he average like 27 this year at the age of 35 he still had a tremendous season Beal I mean unfortunately it didn't seem like the he acclimated well with the duo of Booker we finally got a huge Booker performance but it never came together at the right time to me this was the most expensive sweep that we've seen it's a a sweep that will have implications on the way teams are constructed for the future based off of the way that the CBA is and it's going to be interesting to see how these guys pivot what can be salvageable after getting sunburnt Y and what cannot be I'm glad you brought up expensive Phoenix is married next season are Barbie marks notes to the most expensive roster in NBA history and there are not a whole lot of moves that they can make Brian where do they go from here they can functionally only trade three players other than minimum salary players which you're not going to be able to trade for much that is Deon B who is your franchise player Kevin Durant who you're not going to be able to get equal return for I can't see that being something they want to do or um Yousef nurkic who is their franchise Center and doesn't have an incredible amount of value in the league they have traded four first round picks six second round picks and four first round swaps they are essentially locked into this roster um and that is a situation we've never seen before right we've seen historic gamble on these big three combined with these new rules that that restrict what you are as a high spending team also take you back when the when the heat brought the big their big three together they were obviously an imperfect team in year two they signed Shane Bader in year three they signed Ray Allen they were a juggernaut those were signings with a mid-level exception they can't do it they're not allowed to use it it's taken away they do have this year's draft pick but that's it but they can't they really probably shouldn't even trade that because they can't get any other player in be this is like their last chance to draft for a couple of years so they are they are locked into a team and I do think it's interesting Durant last night did talk about continuity it may not be that he just is feeling love for Phoenix continuity may be their only option considering what they've gotten this team hoping to bring it back together but at the end of the day this team wasn't good enough the players 4 through 14 were not good enough they had the lowest scoring bench in the league that is as big of an issue as the fit or the number of shots that Kevin Durant got and now they're going to have to go back to the drawing board the problem is they have all but exhausted their options the drawing board is this big right it's a very very small board Bo that's not a triangle [Music]

Channel: ESPN

Views: 110,293

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Id: FheawQXt9jE

Length: 12min 52sec (772 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024