It is the JR Sportbreeze Show here with you on the Infinity Sports Network. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia.
Thank you to everybody tuned in all over North America. You could be in Miami, Florida. You could be clear across the country. You could be in another country.
Damn it. You could be in Vancouver. That's far, okay? You could be in Miami. You could be in Honolulu. You could be in Miami or you could be in Anchorage, all right? That's a long ass flight.
Damn. Anchorage, of course, everything. Anchorage is long.
Just going to Vancouver from Miami. That'd be what, seven hours? Six hours? Forget about it.
Not me. Anyway, wherever you might be in either country, thank you for being here. The show gets started every weekday at 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 Pacific. You can tune in on the free Odyssey app. You can listen on your local Infinity Sports Network affiliate. If you got Sirius XM, it's channel 375. If you got a smart speaker, ask the speaker to play the Infinity Sports Network.
It's simple. I'm in Atlanta. Thank you to our producer, Nico Scarlato. He's holding it down for us in New York City. You can always hit me up as well here. 888-710-4ISN.
That's 888-710-4ISN. I am also on the internet. I exist everywhere at JR Sport Brief. There's a lot of basketball going on. Unfortunately, if you are a fan of the Cleveland Cavaliers, they are minutes away from hosting Game 2 against the Indiana Pacers. The Cavaliers are already down 0-1 and they got some bad news. Not only is Darius Garland still out with a hyper extended big toe, that sucks.
Sounds painful. Evan Mobley is out. The defensive player of the year, the reigning defensive player of the year, he's not playing. He has an ankle injury, okay? You think about DeAndre Hunter, who's come on and he's been a great addition to the Cleveland Cavaliers since they got him from the Atlanta Hawks.
This man is out with a thumb injury. And so the Cleveland Cavaliers are trying to hold off on an 0-2 hole. I'm going to do all these teams that lost in the first game of the second round.
I'm going to do that in a second. How about this? In about 20 minutes, we got a team that's trying to avoid a fate.
The same fate of a lot of these other teams. Chris Hine is going to join us from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I'm going to get his thoughts on what the Minnesota Timberwolves hope to do against the Golden State Warriors.
And then Chris also has out a pretty cool book on Anthony Edwards. So he'll be here with us in about 20 minutes. Like I said, you missed the first hour of the show, rewind on the Free Odyssey app. We talked about the New York Knicks and the Celtics giving the game away last night. We had an angry caller from Ohio not happy with the Cleveland Cavaliers not getting calls.
I'm sure he is not happy with the fact that a lot of their stars are not playing and they realistically, they may finish 0-2. As a matter of fact, if I'm a fan of the Indiana Pacers, I'm going to be disappointed if we don't go up 2-0 against these Cavaliers. Let's see how much fight they got. And it's kind of crazy right now because in the NBA, now that we've moved on to the second round of the playoffs, not only have these games that we've seen so far been close, the only series that hasn't started are the Warriors and the Timberwolves, the Pacers entered this series against the Cavs as underdogs. The Knicks not expected to go out here and beat the Celtics. They won last night because the Celtics took too many damn threes. The Denver Nuggets, the Nuggets end up upsetting the Thunder last night.
It took an Aaron Gordon three to win it. The Nuggets underdogs here against the number one seeded Oklahoma City Thunder. Minnesota doesn't want any of this and we know, come on now, you got it Steph Curry on your team? Steph Curry can, he can help will you forward against Minnesota. And so I don't know what this is.
This is actually good, right? You think about the NBA playoffs, if I think about the history of the NBA and some of the champs that we've had, everything goes in spurts. Every dog has its day, whether it's the Celtics going on a stretch or the Lakers going on a stretch or the Chicago Bulls going on a stretch or the Golden State Warriors or the San Antonio Spurs, everybody, the Miami Heat. Everybody has a stretch where it's just like, they're the favorites. But when you think about the NBA and what we have right now, we've gotten a little bit more parity.
I would say over the past maybe, maybe decade, you know, definitely the past five years. You think about the teams that have won the NBA championship, the Boston Celtics, the Denver Nuggets, the Golden State Warriors, the Bucks, the Lakers, the Raptors, that's taken us back to 2019. And so it's actually nice to go into a season, which I think we did this year.
And you can identify a team. Oh, man, the Celtics are going to go out here and repeat. I'm going to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder. It's nice. It's nice to look at a team, but it's nice to go into a season and not feel that you just have an overwhelming favorite. Come on. The Golden State Warriors that had Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and Clayton, all these guys in their prime.
You're just like, it's not fair. What did they do? They went out there and won twice. OK, Chicago Bulls going like it's like, who's Michael Jordan going to beat this year?
Oh, great. We got to look at him beat up on the Utah Jazz again. I'd rather have parity in this year. I favor the Celtics to go back to back.
It's not necessarily a given, especially if they're going to go out here and make dumbass decisions like take a sixty threes and miss forty five of them. I like parity. It's good. How about this in the NFL? No different, huh? Like people want to say Kansas City Chiefs. Well, they just they got the best quarterback. Their window is huge, but it's nice to say, oh, well, we got the Eagles here this year and not the Kansas City Chiefs. So I'm all here for parity. Nico, does it does it matter to you?
Does it have things more open? Is it better or do you think the league or any league is better when you have an overwhelming villain at the top? Yeah, I'm on the side of I'm I'm rooting for parity. Like, for example, in these playoffs, I'm always no matter what sport is, whether it's basketball, hockey, with my team's not in it, my favorite teams that I'm rooting for instantly becomes teams that either have never won or have not won in a while. I will say the only time that I disagreed with you in that last statement was the Eagles, because as a giant fan, I think I would have rather the Chiefs continued their dynasty.
OK, I can dig it. So if your team is not winning, you're not going hard for the underdog. You're rooting for the losers.
Yeah, whoever has the longest championship drought, unless I take that back for hockey, because I think it's pretty funny that all the Canadian teams haven't won when it's like their sport. I think that's funny. You trying to tick off the people in Toronto or Maple Leaf fans right now is what you're trying to do? Maybe just a little bit. Yeah, they're going to start calling up and asking for you, Nico. You better be careful there.
Michelle asked everybody in Toronto. Yeah, I don't know. Do I root for the losers or the underdog? I don't. I root for good games. Like, I don't care.
Like, I've had this conversation with Hickey plenty of times. Like, I like the New York Jets, but if they it's like a child. Like you root for your kids, you want and this is I'm going to try to say this in the most clear way possible.
People are like, oh, what the hell is this guy getting ready to say? You want to root for your kids success. But if they go through learning lessons in life, sometimes you got to just let them experience life and learn from it. And so when the New York Jets brought on Aaron Rodgers, I'm just like, OK, this is either going to work or it's going to go straight to hell. And there's a better chance that it goes straight to hell instead of working. And so it got to the point where they're in the midst of it.
And I'm like, hey, look, if you're going to fail and fall flat on your face, they just go out there and do it. And that's ultimately what the New York Jets did. So I was rooting for the New York Jets just to get through the pain. Hurry up, like suck, suffer and get it over with.
Rip the Band-Aid off and try to heal and move forward. And so I don't know about rooting for losers, Nico, but I just want good games. I want good matchups. And right now, to the surprise of nobody, it's still early, very early. Indiana was off to a seven to two lead against Cleveland. Jared Allen just slammed one home.
So now it's a seven to four. Just give me give me good games. So I love what we see in the NBA right now.
Losers galore all over the place. Like even last night, Oklahoma City didn't play in nine days. And it took an Aaron Gordon three to come from behind at the buzzer and basically win the game. He also had twenty two points, 14 rebounds, likely MVP Shea Gilgas Alexander. He had thirty three points, 10 rebounds, eight assists. He did his job. And Shea Gilgas Alexander was just like, come on, man, we lost the game. This is a part of the playoffs.
Listen to what he had to say. It should be good. It should be fun. We're going to find out what we're made of.
We're really made of. And we can expect it to be smooth sailing this whole journey. No journey in life is.
And we know that today is a bump in our own unexpected. No one expects to lose, especially that way. But it's the game of life. So it's about how you respond to getting to getting knocked down.
That's what we got to do next game. Oh, see, come on now. Right. It makes all the sense in the world. I like that.
And it's nice life. Like losers get put down and they just stay down. Sometimes, you know, when to stay down and when to get up, stay down a little longer. But now, yeah, that's a great mentality. Nobody's riding the wave all the time. Sometimes a wave comes crashing down and you might come crashing down, too. You're going to get back up, get back on that board and keep on rolling.
Yeah, you hope to. That was last night. Man, we talked about Cleveland. These Cavaliers are trying to avoid an 0-2 hole and Donovan Mitchell before the game, before he knew his teammates were going to be hurt. Donovan Mitchell, another loser. Game one loser. Donovan Mitchell said, I don't care what just happened. We are still confident.
At least I am. We didn't make shots and got to give them credit. But, you know, not easy to go 16 and also we had to find a way, you know, and respond. That's the biggest thing to hang our heads about. We'll be fine and we'll be better.
OK. All right. That's round two. Nico did. So those we got some losers out the way. Who was that? The Cavaliers lost. Got him.
Hmm. What did the team do? Oh, the last night Oklahoma City Thunder losers, they lost all the Boston Celtics.
He had the team that decided to. This still sounds crazy. Nico, they missed 45 threes. They missed 45 threes. Unbelievable.
Like even saying it just just sounds ridiculous. They missed 45 three point shots. They took 60 of them. I'm shaking.
You can't you people can't see me unless you're super creep on the millionth floor in Atlanta. But I shake my head every time I say that. 45 missed threes. It is the ultimate loser. They were there were no close game. They were up 20 and choke this one away.
Let's listen to another loser, Jalen Brown. He's like, yeah, maybe we took too many threes. Some of them felt good. Some of them felt like we may be forced to issue and definitely our rhythm in our our timing was a little bit off.
We got a lot of great looks. But, you know, it may be some truth to that. We got to look at the film and see kind of what happened in that second half. Look, here's here's the deal. It's one game.
I get it. It's one game. It's one game. I still believe. The Oklahoma City Thunder will beat the Nuggets. I still believe the team that took all them stupid three pointers last night, the Boston Celtics. I still believe that they'll go out there and beat the New York Knicks.
I mean, this one is a little bit tougher, given the injuries. We don't know what things will go game to game. But I think Indiana is going to play Cleveland close all the way through.
I do. And then tonight. Means game one of the Minnesota Timberwolves going to, you know, give in to history. Are they going to be the other team to the home team to lose every game one of the second round?
It's a possibility. But I'm going to give Minnesota to give them the edge. And I'd love to see this series go seven games. Minnesota's. You got the veterans on Golden State versus the young guys on Minnesota. Sign me up.
This is old guard versus new guard. Golden State Warriors said, oh, I don't give a damn how old Jimmy Butler is. We need him.
He's better than Jonathan Kuminga. At least Jimmy Butler can help you go to a championship. He's done it already.
Not the mountaintop. He'll get to the series. Sign me up. And as of right now, Indiana, Cleveland, they're all tied up at nine. About seven minutes to go here in the first quarter. We'll keep you up to date. It's the JR Sportbreeze show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network.
You know, since we only have one more series that hasn't gotten started yet, we come back on the other side of the break. It's time to have a chat with Chris Hine from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Not only does he keep up and follow everything involving. The Minnesota Timberwolves. This man recently released a book about one of the most charismatic and well, he's certainly very vocal. Vocal people in the NBA vocal may be an understatement. We're going to have a chat with Chris Hine about the Timberwolves, Anthony Edwards, the new ownership group. There's a lot to get into with Chris on the other side of the break. We'll talk about these T wolves and what they could do against Steph Curry and the Warriors.
We'll do that on the other side. It's the JR Sportbreeze show on the Infinity Sports Network. It is the JR Sportbreeze show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network, the NBA playoffs. They are in full effect and we have one more second round matchup that we need to get underway. That'll take place in a little while later on tonight between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Golden State Warriors.
It's like we got the old guard versus the new guard. We got Steph Curry versus Anthony Edwards and a lot of other stars in the mix to go bears of the world. The Randles, the butlers, the greens to talk about what we can expect from the Minnesota Timberwolves. Joining us right now is someone who covers the team full time for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He also has a book on its way.
The incredible journey of NBA rising star Anthony Edwards. It is Chris Hine. Chris, how are you? I'm good. How are you doing? Thanks for having me on.
I'm very well. Thank you for taking the time to join us. You know, there's so much to get into.
So many storylines. When you think about the Minnesota Timberwolves, I think back to the early portion of the season where they were struggling. Just how do we fit in Julius Randle? He's not Carl Anthony Towns.
How does he fit with Anthony Edwards? What is the progression that you've seen from the Timberwolves from the beginning of the season up until now? Yeah, I think a lot of credit goes to Julius Randle for making his style fit with the Wolves right around the halfway point of the season. He embraced more of a point forward facilitator role. And he's in a contract year, so to speak.
He has a player option. He's willingly embraced taking fewer shots, looking to score less in the name of helping the team win. And he saw, you know, right around January and when he got hurt, he saw how ball movement and this is gravity when he draws a crowd down low can affect, you know, ball movement, set up open shots for his teammates. And if you look, when he came back from injury in March, the Wolves went 17 and 4 down the stretch when he came back. So it was really him and the coaching staff and his teammates working together to figure out how best he fits with this group.
They figure it out and here they are now in the second round of the playoffs. Chris Hahn is here with us from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. You talk about how Julius Randle has to fit in.
We know the star of the team is Anthony Edwards. This guy doesn't even turn 24 until, I believe, August of this year. How have you seen him grow since he's been in the league? I remember interviewing him when he was still in high school.
He's still getting a lot of fines. He's still kind of prone to say whatever's on his mind. What growth process have you seen from him? Yeah, he's always going to be himself.
And I think that's what people really enjoy about him and why he's such a large following in Minnesota and nationwide as well. But I think one of the things that you get impressed with following his career from the beginning, he's constantly learning, he's constantly improving, he's added to his game, and you can see significant improvements every season that he's been in the NBA. Whether it's three defenses, whether it's improving his three-point shot, whether it's developing a mid-range game, getting to the foul line more.
You can see these tangible improvements year to year. And especially when it comes to the mental side of the game, I think he's learning how to break down a game and has learned how to break down a game really fast over the first five years of his career. And you saw some of the results of that in that Lakers series. Laking situations, which he's been inconsistent with the last couple of seasons, he really knew what the Lakers were going to be doing to him late in those games. And he made all the right plays, all the right reads coming out of it. And he had this tendency to live up to the moment in the playoffs throughout his career. I think what you saw in that series was not just scoring-wise, but just making the right reads, making the right plays, and breaking down a defense.
That's the next step in his evolution. And I think it was a really significant one for where the Wolves are at right now. Chris Hahn covers the Minnesota Timberwolves full-time for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. When you think about Anthony Edwards, he certainly spent a lot of time last year with Steph Curry during the summer at the Olympics. We saw the clips, we saw them playing out there. Is there anything that he's been vocal about taking from that Olympic experience specifically to Steph Curry?
Anything? Yeah, there was earlier in the year, we talked to him about that. And when it came to Steph, I think it was just the amount of shots that he was taking at his workouts. And he would watch how many shots Steph was putting up.
And he'd be like, oh man, I have to take this many shots in my pregame routine. And he incorporated some of that into his workouts as well. I think the volume of shots that he was putting up per workout was one of the major things from Steph. He also took from LeBron too. I think he stole, not stole, but borrowed from LeBron's stretching regimen and the way that LeBron warms up for a workout. And so he kind of took these bits and pieces from some of the Olympians, Steph included, and worked them into his repertoire. And he's seen that this year. And I remember asking him early in the season, when he was putting up all these threes, I said, was the main thing that you learned from Steph basically just to chuck as many threes as possible?
Is that the mindset? And he said no, but he did mention about the number of shots just in preparation that he learned from Steph. Yeah, well we can see that he certainly was launching a lot of threes, especially early in the season. You talk about Steph Curry, we're going to see Minnesota try to get game one at home tonight. With all the depth and length and size that the Timberwolves do have, how do they defend Steph Curry? You're not going to throw Anthony Edwards at him the whole damn time.
No, I think you're going to see a committee approach. I think you're going to see Jayden McDaniels be the primary defender. Jayden's very good at navigating screens, using his length to bother people. He can bother shots on Steph with his length, whether he's on the side of Steph, whether he's from behind. And I think you'll also see the Wolves use guys like Mike Conley for a few minutes, Akil Alexander-Walker, Dante Vincenzo. The Wolves have multiple options that they can throw at Steph from their guard position, soft forward position. So I think they're going to be covered there. I mean, just how effective everybody is at Steph Curry, right?
So you never know if people are going for 40-plus on any given night. But I think the Wolves do have options. They even have a rookie off the bench, Jalen Clark, who is the Pac-12 defensive player of the year.
He was at UCLA. Who knows if he gets a little bit of run in this series, just two, three minutes here and there to guard Steph. They have some options. Very curious to just how heavily they guard him and with whom. Well, you talk about defense. Rudy Gobert is, what, four-time defensive player of the year, and we know him and Draymond have gotten into it in the past, or Draymond has gotten his arms wrapped around his neck. Why is there so much Rudy Gobert hate across the league, or is it just Draymond who's just beat that drum, him and Steph? No, I mean, I think you see that, listen, last summer was everybody, but a lot of people were getting on podcasts just to go trash Rudy Gobert.
It became almost a weekly thing as a beat writer. Like, watch, who said something this week about Rudy Gobert? Oh, this person?
That person? Like, you know, it was kind of crazy to see that. Yeah, it's just the way it is. You know, they've also competed for defensive player of the year awards. Rudy's won four of them. Draymond probably thinks some of those should have gone to him, you know?
So, there's probably a little bit of that there. And, you know, I think one of the things about Rudy, his impact is invisible sometimes, right? The way that he deters people from the rim, the way that he alters shots, alters shot releases, you know, and people notice the things that he doesn't do well.
You know, if he fumbles a ball out of bounds on offense, you know, maybe missing something at the rim, and those get magnified because that's the social media age we live in, right? But when you watch him and observe him on a daily basis and a game-to-game basis, you can really see the impact, especially late in the season. If you go back, the Wolves, like I said, they had a really strong close to the season, and guys like Ant and others struggled late in the season. It looked like they were a little gassed coming down the stretch, but Rudy was putting up like 20 and 20 or close to it most nights against some of these teams that the Wolves had to beat to secure that number 60 to get a guaranteed playoff spot. So, you know, he shows up when it matters the most for them, and he did, you know, game five against the Lakers.
He's not always going to dominate the way he did then, but he generally finds a way to impact the game positively no matter what. Chris, you have seen every Minnesota Timberwolves game, you're locked in close with the team. Is the size, is the youth, is the energy, are they going to overcome this veteran team, this Golden State Warriors squad? Ah, you know, I'm not in the prediction business, but I think this is a different challenge for them than the Lakers were just because of how the Warriors operate. Like, they are a more, I feel like, even with the Jimmy Butler trade, it feels like a more cohesive fit than the Lakers roster was. Last series with LeBron and Luca, you know, the way they operate with Steph, they've been doing it for years. They're comfortable going small.
They prefer to go small, and they can operate well, you know, with their lack of size. And the Wolves do tend to struggle sometimes when teams are off-ball movement-based offenses. They're much better against guys like Luca or isolation players, right? Steph is not an isolation player. Steph is going to be constantly moving. The Warriors are going to be moving the ball. That is a little harder for the Wolves to defend. They have great one-on-one defenders, great perimeter defenders, but when you're constantly moving, constantly trying to find the gaps in the defense, that can be a little trickier for the Wolves to defend.
So I think that's a different challenge. Not one that is daunting for them by any stretch, but it's just a different matchup than the Lakers' one. Well, Chris, you mentioned Jimmy Butler. I know it feels like forever ago that he had that one season in Minnesota, and then he wanted to be traded. There's no juice with him returning. That's so far in the rearview.
Am I wrong? Well, for the fans, there's certainly juice. The fans are certainly going to have some fun with that because they do not appreciate how Jimmy forced his way out of town. Now, as for the actual team itself, the whole roster, front office, coaching staff, that's all turned over completely since Jimmy was here seven, eight years ago. So there's nobody on the actual team and on the actual court that's going to feel a type of way about Jimmy Butler.
But the fan base, I would expect you to hear some boos, especially early in the game, whenever he touches the ball. When you talk about the player tone over, we also know that there's an ownership turnover. When do things become official for Laurie and A-Rod to take things over? That's kind of what we're waiting on. I think it's in the NBA's hands at this point.
And once they approve the sale, then Laurie and A-Rod will officially become the controlling owners of the team. And we're kind of just all waiting for that to happen and waiting for them to come out and give us their plans. We have an idea that they want to try to build a new arena somewhere in the future. We're not sure what exactly those plans look like or what their vision may be for that.
It's probably the biggest thing locally that people are wondering about. But right now, we're just kind of waiting and the playoffs are a distraction from that right now. Well, we've seen Karl-Anthony Towns, his contract, get moved. Is there any concern from the fan base as to what this ownership group might do or what it might look like? Well, I don't know that that's necessarily a Timberwolves specific thing. I think a lot of teams are finding out that life in the second apron is not somewhere they want to be. And the Timberwolves were scaring down life in the second apron if they kept Karl-Anthony Towns. And that's one reason why they made the move that they made. Not necessarily from a luxury tax perspective, but from a roster building perspective and all the things that happen to you when you stay in the second apron, like restricting first round draft picks and the ability to trade them and no mid-level exception use and all these things and trades become harder to make.
All these things, life in the second apron is very difficult. So I think a lot of teams are trying to duck under that, Timberwolves included. I don't think that if you just look at the tea leaves of how the Wolves are operating, it seems like they're going to be a team that is above the first apron but above the second apron, which would indicate that no matter who's in charge, they will be willing to pay the luxury tax. At least for the foreseeable future, as long as the team is competitive, which quite honestly is life in the NBA. You can't be a competitive team in the NBA and not pay the luxury tax eventually. I think every ownership group understands that, or at least they have to if they want to be competitive for a number of years. It's just the reality of life in the NBA.
The question is for how long do you want to do that and how competitive do you have to be to do that. Right now the Wolves are in a window where they have a real chance of making runs for multiple years as long as Anthony Edwards is wearing a Timberwolves jersey. Chris, I know you've been working on a book that everybody's going to be able to get their hands on soon. The Incredible Journey of NBA Rising Star Anthony Edwards is called Ant. Fill us in.
How long? Why specifically? We know he's a very interesting individual so I can understand why, but let's hear from you. Yeah, he's got an interesting story and I think an inspirational story for people.
The opportunity came to me last year from my publisher Harper Collins to write this book. I've covered Ant the entire time he's been in the NBA and developed relationships with not just him, but people around him that are close to him. His mother and his grandmother were his ultimate cheerleaders growing up and I think a lot of the personality that you see in Ant, the joy, the positivity that he radiates, it comes from them. He overcame both of them passing away when he was 13 years old.
They died about five, six months apart from cancer. So the book, the first half of it details that part of his life and his mother, his grandmother, the community of people, his family that really uplifted him growing up in Atlanta, made sure he got to where he needed to go. Some of the funny stories along the way, his youth football days, his early AAU basketball days and some of the stories that people from back then told me. I think it's going to be a funny, hopefully enlightening and inspirational read for people and then the second half of the book is his NBA career. How he's turned into the superstar that he is and we end it with his Olympic experience playing alongside Seth Lebron and his favorite player growing up, Kevin Durant. So I think it's a really inspiring story.
Even though he's only 23 years old right now, there's a lot to tell there. Almost certainly. Tell everybody where they can get their hands on it, Chris. Yeah, just search Ant, Chris Hines, H-I-N-E, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Wherever Books Are Sold. On my Twitter page, Blue Sky, your preferred social media outlet, I have links there for you to follow.
But yeah, it's available wherever books are sold and pre-orders will mean a lot. So thank you for the chance to promote it. I appreciate it. I appreciate you taking the time to join us. I know it's busy on a game night, so we'll catch you on down the line. Chris, thank you so much.
Sounds good. Thanks, I appreciate it. No doubt about it. That Chris Hines covers all things Minnesota Timberwolves for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and also has out this book Ant, The Incredible Journey of NBA Rising Star, Anthony Edwards. And I had a chance to meet Anthony, I want to say in 2018, 2019. This is before he even went to Georgia.
This is even before he went to Georgia and played ball. Of course, he stayed local here in Atlanta and he's just chill and relaxed. And, you know, you meet a lot of future stars and guys who are pretty young before they ever become famous. And most guys are like that.
Pretty chill and pretty relaxed. A lot of them take that on into becoming pros and some just become, you know, I can use some other words. Anthony Edwards has not been that guy. You know, from the first time I met him, he just still seems to be the same dude. I haven't seen him or interviewed him since then, but he still comes across as the same exact guy. And for that, you can appreciate because he is about, I don't know, two hundred and fifty mill plus committed in regards to money. Still the same dude with more money. Nice guy.
Twenty three years old. Anthony Edwards is crazy. It's the J.R. Sportbreeze show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Hey, Chris isn't the only person with a book out. It's a famous NFL coach. He had a book drop today.
I wonder if it made him happy or if he still ticked off. I'm going to tell you about Bill Belichick on the other side of the break. It is the J.R. Sportbreeze show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Hey, thank you so much to Chris Hine for joining us in the last break from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, coming by to talk to us about the Golden State Warriors getting ready to take on the Timberwolves out in Minnesota. You got the young guys led by Anthony Edwards and then you got the old guys with Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and then also Jimmy Butler, who you could say is kind of new to this particular party. And speaking of, you know, I don't want to call this new.
We talked about this extensively. The Cleveland Cavaliers are playing tonight without Evan Mobley, the reigning defensive player of the year. They don't have DeAndre Hunter, one of the best two way players in the entire NBA, could play defense and knock down some shots, get some buckets. And they don't have Darius Garland. He's been out for several games now dating back to the last round with a hyper extension of his toe. And so the Cleveland Cavaliers are already down 0-1 as it stands this minute.
They lead 38 to 22. This is how basketball works. You think about what we've seen on the court so far. We got guys that nobody expected.
This is what you want. Sam Merrill has stepped up. He has nine points. He's three or four from downtown. Max Struce was the last time you heard Max's name. He has eight points. He is two or four from downtown. And Ty Jerome, who we know he wants to go out there and get his shots up.
Well, he got zero points. Tyrese Halliburton has two. Indiana Pacers, they're not far behind. You know, 38 to 24 at this point.
I'm sure they're certainly going to go out on a run. And Donovan Mitchell leading the way overall with 12 points. So the Cavaliers getting some bench help. Nobody woke up and said, oh, Sam Merrill is going to be one of the reasons that these these Cavaliers get off to a hot start. But here we are. Let's see if the magic can last the entire game. I'm sure Indiana is going to go out on a run there. We'll keep you up to date as things continue on.
This is also something that I need to do, something that I need to share. And it's to tell you about the Defensive Player of the Week, sponsored by the Navy Federal Credit Union, who proudly celebrates all who go above and beyond during Military Appreciation Month. You can learn more at Navy federal dot org slash celebrate. Our members are the mission. And this week's defensive player of the week, McHale Bridges of the New York Knicks. This man ripped that ball away from Jalen Brown at the end of the game, sealing victory for the New York Knicks in Game one, giving them a one to nothing series lead. And apparently the Boston Celtics, they also went out there and played defense against themselves. Because in what world are you taking sixty three pointers and still chucking them up? Well, you ultimately miss forty five. It is as dumb as dumb as dumb can get. You got a 20 point lead.
The Boston Celtics went out there and played defense against themselves. Eight eight eight seven ten for ISN. That's eight eight eight seven ten for ISN. Again, thank you to Chris Hahn for joining us in the last break. He has a book out and basically highlighting the life of Anthony Edwards and how he got to where he is today. He's not the only person with a book out. I don't want to say congratulations because he just seems like such a curmudgeon. Bill Belichick's book is out today.
The art of winning lessons from my life and football. He also told us that's not the title that he wanted. He hasn't been happy with the promotion.
Feels like there's been too much negativity around it. People picking apart his relationship. He had that odd interview on CBS where he was asked about his relationship with his girlfriend in the back.
Didn't want to respond to any of it with Jordan Hudson. Remember, Belichick is 73. She's like she's like 23. So what they have in common.
Well, well, she has an old soul at 23. That's if you believe that, then great. This is Bill Belichick.
If you need a reminder, if you need help, a suggestion to buy the book. This is Belichick on CBS last week talking about or not talking about his relationship with Jordan Hudson. You have Jordan right over there. Everybody in the world seems to be following this relationship. They've got an opinion about your private life.
It's got nothing to do with them, but they're invested in it. How do you deal with that? Never been too worried about what everybody else thinks.
Just try to do what I feel like is best for me and what's right. How did you guys meet? Not talking about this. No, no. He didn't want to talk about Robert Kraft either. That was hilarious. He's like, hey, didn't Robert Kraft say he fired you? He's like, no, it's a it was a mutual decision.
What are you talking about? Do you feel like you were treated with dignity and respect when you were let go by Robert Kraft? Yeah, well, it was a mutual decision for that for us to part ways. He said fired.
It was a mutual decision. He knows how to promote a book now, doesn't he? Nico, you're going to buy Bill Belichick's book?
Probably not. Oh, damn. Ouch. I've only bought one book in my entire life and it sits in my room and I still haven't even finished it. Is it a sports related book or what is it? Yeah, it was a book on David Wright and his career with the Mets.
What? Do you want me to tell you how it ended? I think I lived it. I remember you.
You know what happened, right? Well, I figured he's my favorite player of all time, so why not check it out? And then I realized halfway through that I just I was reading is too boring for me. Damn. You don't like to read anything? I mean, I'll read like articles that are quick, but my attention span just can't do it for, you know, 500 pages. I lose interest.
Not for maybe it was David Wright and not the book. No comment. OK. Yeah. Kind of a boring guy. Bill Belichick, I'm sure his book is full of excitement.
Maybe, maybe not. It's the J.R. Sportbrie show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Hey, we'll give you an update on what's going on in Cleveland. We'll talk about what took place last night in Oklahoma City. And we'll have a chat with Gary Washburn from the Boston Globe. Talk about those Celtics shooting them stupid threes.
We got more to do. The Infinity Sports Network, Jeff Sportbrie show.
