West finals: Mavericks vs. Timberwolves preview | Good Word with Goodwill
Yahoo Sports senior NBA reporter Vincent Goodwill is joined by the Boston Globe's Gary Washburn to break down the Western Conference finals showdown. Hear the full conversation on “Good Word with Goodwill” - part of the “Ball Don’t Lie” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Western conference finals preview.
I'm looking at Anthony Edwards and I'm saying Anthony's gonna have to guard either Kyrie Irving or Luka.
Danic.
Ann's gonna have to guard one of those guys.
Jaden mcd's gonna have to guard the other.
Like I feel like this is like a perfectly sort of matched strength versus strength conference finals.
If there ever could be one fascinating and Dallas, they're good.
I mean, they're better than I thought they would be Kyrie and slut, a complete one.
A that dude's turned into that guy that we all fought.
I mean, I don't think there's a favor here like I don't look at Minnesota and be like, oh, they're better like Dallas, I didn't think Dallas would beat Oklahoma City and they had just after losing game one and they handle everything.
They won four or five.
I think Jason Kidd's finally getting the credit as a quality coach that kinda got them up, up off the deck after game one.
So talking to coaches around the room, the way to get to Dallas is you gotta make, you gotta make Luca defended like you gotta make him defend, you cannot have him take breaks or defense, you gotta get him in a little bit of early foul trouble and you gotta get him barking at the refs, you gotta go at him, you gotta make him play some defense and I'm sure Minnesota will do that.
Gary, I think you made some excellent points for one.
Jason Kidd is a excellent coach, especially in terms of making adjustments and getting guys to buy in and play defense.
Like I would have never thought that Daniel Gafford and PJ Washington, two guys who came from losing cultures, losing cultures came in and immediately like the first couple of days after the trade deadline, they were in Detroit and those dudes were mixing it up and roughing it up.
Now, granted, that was a, you know, a dog pistons team but they were still invested with their teammate at the time.
They barely got it.
They let you talk about the pistols like that.
Go ahead man.
Gary, Gary, this ain't the bad boys.
These boys are just bad.
All right.
They, they can, they can't even, they can't even get the lottery, right, Gary.
But, but Gary, I do think that I would say Minnesota is the favorite by virtue of beating the champions on the champion home floor by beating the champions three times in the champions building by coming back from a 32 deficit.
I think they are the favorites and I wonder the emotional high that you're on after beating Denver, you have to rev it back up.
You gotta get yourself right back in a playoff mindset in the conference finals.
Mindset.
I don't know if I'm making an official pick, but I'm leaning towards us taking a trip to Prince's house at some point in June and you can't do that if the NBA finals are in Dallas, that's all I'm gonna say.
I'm right.
We might be, we might be in Paisley Park, um, in June.