 What's the word y'all NBA play in day one is wrapped up. The first two games were incredible. Obviously game number two is better than game number one, but I still saw some great things again. I'm wondering what we're going to talk about. But I got to start off with this Minnesota Tim Wolves LA Clippers game because boy, it was truly amazing. It is exactly what the fans need when it comes to play-ins. I don't know what the rate is going to look like because we didn't have a LeBron or a Steph Curry like a few years ago. But if you are in tune to this game, you walked out excited unless you're a Clippers fan. Yeah, unless you're a Clippers fan that you're probably not too excited about the things. We're going to talk about it. First, I want to promote my newsletter again. But this is for a specific reason. The newsletter is something we shot Monday, Wednesday, Friday talking about all things basketball. It's for the basketball fan, by the basketball fan. But the reason I'm bringing this up right now with the playoffs getting started, we put together a little Playoff Bracket, a challenge tournament if you will, for the people that are subscribed to the Enjoy Basketball newsletter. We're talking really good prizes for people that have the best potential bracket. So if you think you can predict every single series with the right amount and get the NBA champion, go ahead and hit that link in the description. The only people that can enter this tourney is the people that are subscribed to the Enjoy Basketball newsletter. Do not miss out. And if you're already subscribed, no big deal. Just open up the newsletter in the next day and you're going to get all the information that you need. Okay, cool, cool. Let's talk about this game. If I were to ask you yesterday morning, what do you think the outcome of the game for the Minnesota Timberwolves would be? If I told you, Carthony Towns was going to shoot 3-4-11. He's only going to play 24 minutes. He's going to foul out and end with 11 points. I would assume that 97% of the people were like, oh, the Minnesota Timberwolves must have lost that game. Well, absolutely not because everything else fell into place. And I would go out on a limb and say the best thing that happened to Minnesota today was Carthony Towns fell in out because when he was on the court, the Clippers were going at him. They were going out on runs. And then when he got booted, first of all, disgusting performance from Carthony Towns. I'm happy for them and for the city, but whoa, he's so lucky that he has the teammates that he has to pick him up. Because for a guy that's in all NBA conversations and all Star Calibur dude, the star player of this team, there's no way you should put together this performance. And like the, I hate when NBA players foul and you would have swear to God that they didn't. Kat, we got the replays. Everybody at home season, like I saw many fans like, oh, it's us versus the refs. It wasn't bro. I would say if five out of the six Kat fouls or guaranteed fouls, it might have been one questionable, but the one that he fouled out on inexcusable. For you to be in that situation, knowing that you have five fouls to go over the back on the ball that you couldn't even, it don't matter. Y'all won the game, so it don't matter. Everything else fell into place. And what I love is that Anthony Edwards on national TV, where everybody was watching, was like, I'm that dude. And you know what? This is what makes me even matter. ESPN put together an article, 25 players under 25. I swear to God, they put together this article like once a week it feels like, but they put together another one. And the overall list, I think Anthony Edwards ended up being like 11 or 12. I just got rid of that green screen stuff beneath me. 11 or 12, but there was one writer at ESPN and I don't remember who it was. They had Anthony Edwards as the 24th best player under 25. 25 under 25, he had Anthony Edwards 24. And I'm just like, have you watched a single performance from this dude? He is electric. And when you need him to do the things, he can do the things. Hitting his threes, going at the rack when Carnegie Towns is out and they're only up by one and they need a desperate bucket, going to the rack, drawing the fouls. He did everything you need them to. And it was a plus on the defensive side of the ball. MVP goes to Anthony Edwards. But I can actually give MVP to like three different other people. Let's talk about those other people. Number two, D'Angelo Russell. When the game was starting, D'Angelo Russell was very passive and it's understandable. He's D'Angelo Russell. He's a playmaker. I wouldn't say he's a playmaker first, but he's a guy that likes to facilitate and the Carnegie Towns gets the foul. So he's like, okay, I got ice in my veins. Let me do this thing. He had like three shots down the stretch where he showed the ice in the zane and they were big time shots. And I love what he said in this post game interview saying like, hey, the playing is a thing, but we thought we were too good to be in a planet anyway. So this is not anything crazy for us. And then when you're playing around, it's really something crazy. Carnegie Towns is hugging his girlfriend, which is great and having a great moment. Patrick Beverly is literally crying. He jumps on the stanchion and is going to the crowd. So it might not have been something big for D'Angelo Russell, a guy that's been in the playoffs previously, but for the other team and for the city, it was pretty big. It was funny on inside the NBA. They were laughing slash making fun of the fact that they're acted like this is the NBA finals. They were like, this is the fastest playoff we've ever seen because the finals haven't won by the Minnesota Timberwolves. But I'm not mad at them for being excited about making the playoffs since this has been an organization that has only made it what three, two times since Kevin Garnett left, you know what I'm saying? Making it is a big deal for this organization. So Anthony Edwards, D'Angelo Russell, Patrick Beverly. Now, I'm on record for the entirety of my channels saying that I am a Patrick Beverly fan. And if you're not, I can completely understand some of the things that bro do is unethical. Like the push on Chris Paul at the end of the last playoffs, unethical. As a fan, I can't even excuse that. But if we're talking strictly some of the shenanigans on the court, I love it. The fact that he almost got Marquis Morris kicked out of a game that is like a must win game. I know if they would have lost, they would have had another matchup, but like a must win game is amazing to me. The fact that he got the last couple stops and picked Reggie Jackson's pocket at the end of the game is amazing to me. Patrick Beverly deserves some love as well. And then the last person, of course everybody played their role. Malik Beasley hit some shots. Jared Vanderbilt was an engine and they were on the glass completely as a team. And that's one of the reasons why they won his game. Another guy that deserves a ton of love is Nas Reid because he came in and did his thing. Like I said, the best thing that happened to this team today, the Minnesota Timbers when they came to win in his game was have a Carnegie Towns foul out. Because when Bro was on the court, they were going at him and they were struggling because I mean, I gotta give Taranlu some props in this aspect. He had a good game plan for Carnegie Towns. A great game plan for Carnegie Towns. But when his cat was on the bench, it was open world for a lot of other people. And Nas Reid coming in and hitting some big shots, getting a couple really big offensive rebounds. He deserves some love as well. I'm excited that Minnesota is gonna make the playoffs. They're going against Memphis in the first round and that might be my favorite series out of all of them. You know what? That Celtics net series is gonna be insane too. But these are gonna be great, great series. So I'm excited for Minnesota. Congratulations. Now you got a seven game series to prepare for. But the Clippers, not a game you wanna lose. Up by 10 points, Carnegie Towns fouls out and you lose. It was, for me as a spectator, it was way too much Reggie Jackson down the stretch. And actually I have the statistics here, hold on. In the fourth quarter, Reggie Jackson was one for six with three turnovers and one of them being on the biggest possession of the entire game. For Paul George to have such an electric and great third quarter and them to go away from him in the fourth is ridiculous. It's like Reggie Jackson completely forgot that Paul George was back on the court. Norman Powell only, he ended up with 16 points and I don't know how many scored in the fourth quarter but he deserves to get the ball and sends a lot more. Somebody had to pour Reggie Jackson to the side and say, bro, it's okay, bro. It's okay to hit the A button. You know what I'm saying? It's okay to hit X. He had a play where he's shooting a leaning three in the corner. That's one. He had a play where he gets to the rim and missed the open layup. That's two. And the last play of the game, he turns it over. The last big possession of the game, he turns it over. A bad performance by him. And for a guy that has been really, really good for them for the entire season and a must win. Again, I'm gonna keep putting must win in quotation marks and a must win performance. He sold. He sold. There's no other way to put it. Oh, also in my notes, it says that this team needs to get a damn rebound. So that was a thing. I don't know how many second chance points the Minnesota Timberwolves actually had in the grand scheme of things. But again, I remember a couple really big rebounds from Nas Reid. V8 was on the glass. They needed to get rebounds and they absolutely did not get rebounds. I wanna show a lot of love to the Timberwolves, bro. They showed a ton of heart today. And the Clippers, man, y'all gotta do y'all thing. I know this is not a year where you're necessarily competing because Kawhi Leonard has not been healthy and all of it, but you still wanna get good habits, man. Amir Kawhi played a total of six seconds. I do not like that. Isaiah Hardenstein, I would love to see more of him. He had the one backdoor cup pass that he threw that was amazing. And I would love to see more of him. And now I'm thinking about it. Where the hell was Lucanard? Out for the playing against the Timberwolves. Okay, there it is. It's like, yeah, where was Lucanard? He played a couple nights ago. So I was confused of why he wasn't out there. But I thought maybe he got a DMP coach this season. Now that would have been wild if Lucanard didn't play at all. But it was for a reason. He just wasn't there. I saw that Jason Preston was wearing a Clip Gang or Don't Bang hoodie. That was dope. And I saw that Torian Prince wasn't playing. And he's been a guy that's been really good for the Minnesota Timberwolves for the past month or two. So him not playing, I thought that was gonna hurt them. They brought in Josh Akogi for like nine seconds. He got into some foul trouble. And they was like, you know what? Fischer's like, you know what? We okay. Ricky pleaded okay. But shout out to the Timberwolves, man. Let's move over to the next game. This is the bad thing about me doing these recaps is like, if you have a game earlier in the day, I'm gonna forget some things. And even though I got some notes here, I feel like if I recorded this video first and then came back to record part two, it would have been better. Either way, the Brooklyn Nets win a game. And I want to give a lot of love to the Cavaliers of putting up a fight because in the first quarter, it was 20 to eight and Kairi Irvin did not miss a shot until what seemed like the fourth quarter. And he's doing it during Ramadan, which is crazy when you really think about it. He's fasting. He can't eat. He can't drink until sundown. And I remember people asking like, is this gonna be a thing for Kairi? Is he gonna struggle in these play-ins slash playoff games because he's fasting? And then I really remember last year he was fasting and bro put up like a 40 something piece. So I was like, nah, Kairi is just a different beast. You know, he's so efficient. He's so electric. He's so fun to watch. I made a tweet during this game that was like, if I needed to win one game, if I needed to just win one game and I had all of the players in the NBA to pick from, it's hard for me not to pick KD. It's between KD and Yannis, obviously. But it was so hard for me to not pick KD because early in this game, the Cavs start throwing double bodies at Kevin Array. He was like, no problem, I'll pick you apart. And he ended up with 11 assists. He did eventually get to the point where he was scoring the ball once they needed it the most. But he was playmaking. He had some crazy blocks to win on Laurie Market and he had a chase down block. He ended up with three big blocks, two big steals. And he was amazing this game. But my MVP ball, even though Kairi Irvin had 34 points on 80% shooting, he don't get the MVP ball. You know who does? God damn, Bruce Brown. Bruce Brown on the short roll was looking like, I don't know, he was looking amazing on the short roll, bro. For the dude to be 6'3", 6'4", playing the full position and doing it well. He was getting up there for boards. He ended with nine on the night. Gordian Drogic had a couple rebounds too. Oh no, it was Patty Mills. They were talking about, he's the smallest guy on the court. He had them five rebounds. Bruce Brown deserves all of the love because I would consider myself, and I'll say this publicly, you know, I might be wrong here. I'd consider myself a Brooklyn that's skeptic in a sense that I know that they are a good team, but do I trust the others and do I trust their defense enough to win? What is that? One, two, three, four, seven game series to be champions. I'm still skeptical, you know what I'm saying? They did go against a Brooklyn, I mean a Cavs team that is beat up, but it did ease my pain a little bit to see Bruce Brown continuing the stuff that he's been doing for the last two months. To see Nicholas Claxton play a huge role today and be successful. It did ease my pain a little bit, but I would still classify myself as so skeptic. The series versus the Celtics as of right now, I have no idea who I'd be picking and how many, but still what a great game from the Brooklyn that's doing what they had to do and winning this game. I got a lot of love for the Cavaliers for keeping it close and making it interesting down the stretch. I'm happy that Dearest Garland got to show some people on Astro TV that, hey, I'm really that dude. And even Evan Mobley had his moments in this game that you can see why people have him as their rookie of the year and why they talk about him being somewhat of a generational defender, man. What a great day for basketball. Next tomorrow, nine, 10 matchups. The nine, 10 matchups are gonna be good as well, bro. So let me know what you think about these games. Be sure to hit that link in the description, subscribe to the newsletter, and I'll talk to y'all tomorrow.