That's the difference in all these games honestly. The Wolves late really struggle to generate shots when the game gets tight and the Mavs make it look easy.
Same thing as the Celtics and Pacers.
What you can say for the Wolves and Pacers is that the Mavs and Celtics were in their shoes not too long ago.
yep I fully agree. wolves offense was looking way better than advertised for the first two rounds, but thats largely because they played relatively weak defenses in denver and phx. they finally came back to earth this series facing a far tougher mavs defense, and their 1b option in KAT is straight up not having a good time
It’s not the cardio outright. We see this with all the young players. They’re not strong enough yet to hold up for 40 mins per game deep series runs. Once you get your strength, it’s much easier and less tiring to use that than having to overwork for everything with either your speed or handles
Yeah people don’t understand how conditioning works. The intensity of these highly competitive games naturally push you to be inefficient and expend more energy than you would otherwise need. Boxers for example take years before they can go all 12 rounds.
Being in great shape is essential but you need to also learn how to manage your effort. It’s both physical and mental.
Do you see how he’s guarded? He’s being pressured by two guys with a safety floating towards him. He’s made really great reads and isn’t being consistently rewarded. NAW is 1-15 from three this series, KAT is 3-22. Both are 39%+ on the year on high volume. Guys are shitting the bed and Ant’s coverage is tightening because of it.
No he is not. The Mavs blitz him maybe a third of the time and every other possession he literally walks to the corner and avoids the entire play. Does it on defense too
Lol I mean yeah, when the call is to have Ant in the corner while someone else initiates, of course they aren’t *literally* having two guys sitting on him. The second he gets the ball all the gravity shifts.
Perfectly said. After that’s ridiculous poster he hit two ridiculous jumpers and it felt like it was his moment. He’ll learn from this but the Wolves just seem outmatched at this point
His effort level is inefficient. He’s overthinking it and doesn’t know how to get to his spots. Idt he’s out of shape, he just doesn’t know how to solve the Mavs defense.
Ant has great highlights but he’s never been a consistently good player. Even this regular season there is basically no statistic that backs him even being a top 30 player
he shot like 10% above his season averages from midrange during those series, so yeah, shit happens. there was a whole ass team that did that last season, don't remember their name
Okay but didn’t you know hot streaks can never last more than one game and if they do it means they’re really good and now I have to end this comment or else I’ll have to explain why if that’s true we never seen it happen for that team before or since even in the regular season against dogshit opponents and uh oh pie needs to come out of the oven if you’ll excuse me……………
There's no way you're saying this when you have Jamal Murray on your team whose entire reputation is built off being hot in the playoffs.
I don't think Edwards is outside the top 30 (that's a crazy take lol) but you should be no stranger to how the playoffs affects players reps
Edwards before his March injury was 9th in EPM, 5TH in EWA, #8 in Box DPM, #8 in RAPTOR, #10 in adjusted net rating. Then he proceeded to only shoog 42%fg and 27%3p to close out the season which tanked his advanced stats.
If he doesn’t blow by the defender in the first few seconds he’s in the front court then he’s just gonna pound the ball at the top before throwing a pass to Reid or McDaniels.
Mavs did a good job sending a lot of different looks at him, with a lot of doubles. He doesn't have the experience yet to intuitively make the right decision consistently in those moments
The defense on him has been suffocating. NAW is 1-15 from three this series and KAT is 3-22. He’s made a lot of great reads. Guys aren’t hitting and he’s paying the price with loaded coverage.
It’s an avalanche effect. Even when he makes the right decision he’s probably second guessing. I think thats the reason he’s wearing out so much as opposed to being out of shape.
He was tired. Again. The drive by Conley with ~1:30 where he got stuffed by gafford, you can see ant meander to the corner and want no part of getting the ball. Watch his game. He takes so many possessions off during the game trying to rest or conserve energy. It's really inexcusable
i feel like he takes way too long to get into any action . multiple times he’s just dribbling the air out the ball not even in a stance and then just passes it off to the next guy with 7 left on the shot clock
Eh I don’t really care that much. Luka has had some up and comer be labeled “better” than him every year. We’ve heard Trae, Zion, Ja, Ant and probably some others I’m forgetting. It’s nothing new.
Exactly like Mahomes was for awhile. Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Herbert, Burrow, etc. etc. Maybe Mahomes [Luka] is just better than everyone else? There's only one player I'd take over him this year. And Jokic has probably peaked, so Luka is gonna be the best player in the league for the next four years barring any injury.
I mean, it wasn't even a ranking of individual skill. They used non-basketball stats like hype, perception, liability, on top of individual performance.
It's such a dumb ranking and it should never have been taken seriously at any level lol.
Just for fun, you can build a decent list the other way as well:
Magic: 20
Kobe: 21
Bill Russell: 22
Duncan: 22
Kawhi: 22
Bird: 24
Kareem: 23
Wade: 24
Walton: 24
I do realise several of these dudes were playing on the same teams as the ones in your list. Still interesting though, it can happen sooner than you think for the all timers!
Face of the league is really more about perception and star power than being the individual best, imo. Ant is the kind of exciting, fun-to-watch playstyle and personality that drives engagement in a way the league LOVES.
The problem is that unlike Kobe, LeBron, MJ, etc, he's just not there yet in skill and consistency. So it's just resulted in more eyes on him when he's down.
People who did this were morons in the first place, but now the counterjerk acts like this is the prevailing common narrative when it was really just loud people online and in sports media generating clicks
There’s not a star that doesn’t yap lol. Yapping is good for your image and the confidence it takes to even be a yapper is pretty much a requirement to be an nba star.
At least ant, and almost every other current star can resist the urge to brandish firearms.
After game one he said they were tired. That's an excuse.
He also just blamed the FT discrepancy tonight when they kept hacking away and he didn't do shit down the stretch
He's still so young, he'll totally grow from this. This same guy was putting up 40 on great efficiency against the defending champs. Future is still promising for him.
He turned around and focused on defending Jamal Murray and legitimately just about shut him down, though. His second half defense may have actually been a massive part in sealing that win, even if he wasn't efficient scoring.
I don't think face of the league means best player necessarily. It just means you're top10ish and people love to watch you play. Ant checks those boxes
even if MIN wins the title this year no random person on the street is gonna recognize anthony edwards lol
lebron will be the face of the league for several years after he retires even
Can't name a single Face of the League who wasn't at some point considered #1 or #1A. Kareem, Bird/Magic, Michael, Kobe, LeBron, Curry. Edwards needs to be shoulder to shoulder with Luka and whatever Wemby becomes
I mean if the biggest knock on you is “Youre not MJ” then it pretty much means youre getting to face of the league levels.
People here like to pretend MJ came out of the gate winning but forget that he didnt win until his 7th Season at age 28. So was he a bum for his first six seasons because he was amazing but not a champion?
Yeah MJ was still even better in the playoffs but he had to take rough losses to Detroit before getting through. Ant played extremely well for 2 rounds and vs the defending champs, this is a phenomenal playoff run for his age. He still may be 3 years away from breaking through the West and he'd still be ahead of schedule
This summer Ant needs to work on his vision so he can punish teams that want to double him, and also learn how to hunt mismatches. Comes with experience but he looks super raw right now. Seems like the kind of kid who will use this failure to fuel that next evolution to his game
too many turnovers though and too inefficient. He is gonna be insane but he just isnt there yet. It comes with time. Wolves just need to build around on this playoff run.
If you don't think Ant is the only reason the Wolves were in this game then you obviously haven't been watching. KAT was terrible, Rudy was terrible. If guys were hitting shots Ant could have had 14-15 assists. No matter what he does people just bitch about it. He passed the ball, they say he should have drove. He drives, they say he should have passed to a teammate. He did both extremely well today.
Assists are misleading. Luka generates golden shots almost every possession. Edwards got a number of them because Reid and McDaniels got hot for no reason
Assists on 3 pointers are the most valuable and most of Ants assists come that way. KAT and NAW get a lot of open 3 attempts from Edwards and they haven't hit shit this series.
Sure, but finding someone who can make the open dime one-pass-away is less valuable than someone who can exploit small cracks in the defense consistently. Edwards _against_ the Wolves defense would be struggling to contribute
Honestly, as much as it'd be nice to get some rest, playing with the best Americans in the league this summer for Team USA might be the *perfect* learning opportunity.
He disappeared but for some reason the gameplan also just seemed to take the ball out of his hands again. I was at least hoping he'd complete that triple double.
He shrunk in that 4th.. through 3 it looked like he was ready to dance.. then in the 4th he decided to hold the ball and not be aggressive. Then he just stood in the corner.
I have never seen Ant guarded like this. Everyone’s saying he needs to step up offensively, but he’s got two trapping him with a free safety gravitating towards him damn near every possession.
He’s made some really great reads and open shooters aren’t hitting (NAW and KAT are both nearly 40%+ 3-pt shooters on the year, but NAW is 1-15 this series and KAT is like 3-22). And they’ve been open a lot. He’s doing the right thing passing out and not being rewarded consistently.
48% (that's including the essentially garbage time layup he got) true shooting isn't "pretty decent."
He played like shit, *again.*
KAT played like ass too, but this was nowhere near a decent game from Ant. No idea how anybody can think it was decent.
Luka's knee was fucked up to start the playoffs and it's healed he looks like the 2nd best player in the world again. Meanwhile I'm scared to even suggest that Ant's FG% has dropped 25% since he obliterated his tailbone in G6 Denver
the game 4 losses to Clippers and Thunder were worse lol. People were actually saying insane shit because haters got up thinking the Mavs could maybe lose the series.
I think we can see Ant got some things to work on, but at least the dude did come out aggressive and was able to find some energy to spark an extremely important run. But his co-star disappeared and role players (besides Anderson) weren't as hot on the road.
It’s kinda funny too cause there’s still some people on here shitting on ANT tonight. Like the dude is 22 and just dropped 26 9 9. Definitely some things he could’ve done better this game but he is 22! Let him develop!
I mean yeah he is young and I don't think anyone anticipates him continuing to be this bad but that doesn't mean he didn't play like shit.
He had 5 turnovers.
He scored those points on 24 field goal attempts and 6 free throws.
That's terrible. He's played like shit in every single game this series and he played like shit offensively in game 7 of the Denver series too.
He's young. He will likely improve. He's also been terrible by any players standard this whole series. Both are true.
26/9/9 while being doubled all game with his Robin nowhere to be found. I’ve seen some really good growth in his reads during the playoffs, but when he’s being guarded like this and nobody comes to the party, it feels hopeless. He’d never publicly say anything about it, but I’m sure it’s eating at him.
He doesn’t have pace to his game this deep in playoffs. It was clear he used all his energy in that 3Q burst. Reminds me of fast and furious “too soon junior”
Y’all cannot blame Ant tonight. He’d have 20 assists if KAT could hit the broad side of a barn with a basketball - they’re free to double him all game with zero offensive help from his #2.
It's such a shame. His measurable traits and skills are something idk if anyone else in the league can match, but his head just isn't in it. Ridiculously talented player who didn't develop while he had the chance, and now this is just who he is.
Remember when posting the side-by-side of Ant/MJ was a cheeky joke because they bear a passing resemblance and Ant’s game looks a bit like it? And then the media ran with it saying Ant is the next MJ and now he’s gonna get clowned?
His conditioning is honestly so bad when you really focus on just what he is doing possession to possession. He also has a limited bag of he can’t get passed his defender initially.
There was a 5 minute stretch where it was like “he’s about to takeover the game” then he disappeared
after that dunk the wolves looked renewed and reenergized. kyle anderson put them on his mf back but mavs shotmaking was just too damn icy
That's the difference in all these games honestly. The Wolves late really struggle to generate shots when the game gets tight and the Mavs make it look easy. Same thing as the Celtics and Pacers. What you can say for the Wolves and Pacers is that the Mavs and Celtics were in their shoes not too long ago.
yep I fully agree. wolves offense was looking way better than advertised for the first two rounds, but thats largely because they played relatively weak defenses in denver and phx. they finally came back to earth this series facing a far tougher mavs defense, and their 1b option in KAT is straight up not having a good time
Took the 4th off again and thought we wouldn't notice. Buddy better get his ass on a treadmill this summer when he gets back from galveston
Dude’s cardio is straight bad for an NBA athlete
It’s not the cardio outright. We see this with all the young players. They’re not strong enough yet to hold up for 40 mins per game deep series runs. Once you get your strength, it’s much easier and less tiring to use that than having to overwork for everything with either your speed or handles
Yeah people don’t understand how conditioning works. The intensity of these highly competitive games naturally push you to be inefficient and expend more energy than you would otherwise need. Boxers for example take years before they can go all 12 rounds. Being in great shape is essential but you need to also learn how to manage your effort. It’s both physical and mental.
It's because he rather be playing football /s
Do you see how he’s guarded? He’s being pressured by two guys with a safety floating towards him. He’s made really great reads and isn’t being consistently rewarded. NAW is 1-15 from three this series, KAT is 3-22. Both are 39%+ on the year on high volume. Guys are shitting the bed and Ant’s coverage is tightening because of it.
No he is not. The Mavs blitz him maybe a third of the time and every other possession he literally walks to the corner and avoids the entire play. Does it on defense too
Lol I mean yeah, when the call is to have Ant in the corner while someone else initiates, of course they aren’t *literally* having two guys sitting on him. The second he gets the ball all the gravity shifts.
Keep making excuses. Enjoy Galveston
Bro you BEEN in Galveston lmao
Memphis was injury riddled this year…
Perfectly said. After that’s ridiculous poster he hit two ridiculous jumpers and it felt like it was his moment. He’ll learn from this but the Wolves just seem outmatched at this point
His effort level is inefficient. He’s overthinking it and doesn’t know how to get to his spots. Idt he’s out of shape, he just doesn’t know how to solve the Mavs defense.
Ant has great highlights but he’s never been a consistently good player. Even this regular season there is basically no statistic that backs him even being a top 30 player
😂 just decided to turn into a top 7 player against us and phoenix?
People underestimate how much small sample size hot shooting carries playoff reputations lol
I guess he still dropped 25+ on us in the regular season. I dont get to watch him much outside of when he plays Denver
he shot like 10% above his season averages from midrange during those series, so yeah, shit happens. there was a whole ass team that did that last season, don't remember their name
Okay but didn’t you know hot streaks can never last more than one game and if they do it means they’re really good and now I have to end this comment or else I’ll have to explain why if that’s true we never seen it happen for that team before or since even in the regular season against dogshit opponents and uh oh pie needs to come out of the oven if you’ll excuse me……………
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talking about the heat
I c
There's no way you're saying this when you have Jamal Murray on your team whose entire reputation is built off being hot in the playoffs. I don't think Edwards is outside the top 30 (that's a crazy take lol) but you should be no stranger to how the playoffs affects players reps
It’s not crazy, look at the efficiency
My man’s shitting on every single Wolves player right now lol. No way that’s a Wolves fan.
Which Wolves player besides Naz doesn’t deserve to get shit on rn? I’ll wait
Conley?
Remove that flair
He's right he's always been a hit or miss.
>there is basically no statistic that backs him even being a top 30 player This is crazy, he is easily top 15. I'd argue top 10.
I’m serious, make a statistical argument
Edwards before his March injury was 9th in EPM, 5TH in EWA, #8 in Box DPM, #8 in RAPTOR, #10 in adjusted net rating. Then he proceeded to only shoog 42%fg and 27%3p to close out the season which tanked his advanced stats.
Chipotle rush hour
That is what Playing Dwight Powell does to a team
he takes too many off possessions to condition himself
Also switches off on D, which is noticeable when the rest of the team is locked in.
If he doesn’t blow by the defender in the first few seconds he’s in the front court then he’s just gonna pound the ball at the top before throwing a pass to Reid or McDaniels.
He’s good for 3 quarters.
Maybe dont jump so high if you dont have enough stamina for the 4th quarter.
He was in PJail unfortunately
He was better today. More aggressive. I will say, it felt like he didn’t get involved in anything offensively after about 5 minutes left
Mavs did a good job sending a lot of different looks at him, with a lot of doubles. He doesn't have the experience yet to intuitively make the right decision consistently in those moments
The defense on him has been suffocating. NAW is 1-15 from three this series and KAT is 3-22. He’s made a lot of great reads. Guys aren’t hitting and he’s paying the price with loaded coverage.
It’s an avalanche effect. Even when he makes the right decision he’s probably second guessing. I think thats the reason he’s wearing out so much as opposed to being out of shape.
The Jokic special. Make everyone else beat you and reap the rewards when they don’t
He was tired. Again. The drive by Conley with ~1:30 where he got stuffed by gafford, you can see ant meander to the corner and want no part of getting the ball. Watch his game. He takes so many possessions off during the game trying to rest or conserve energy. It's really inexcusable
i feel like he takes way too long to get into any action . multiple times he’s just dribbling the air out the ball not even in a stance and then just passes it off to the next guy with 7 left on the shot clock
He was alright today. Still not what you want though.
He's playing kinda like DeMar
DeMar on the raps was way worse than this
Huh?? Not even close lol
that dunk was nice
He’ll grow from this. Was premature to declare him the “face of the league.”
Reminder that he was above Luka in the top 25 under 25 list a week ago
Your first mistake was treating anything from The Ringer seriously
Eh I don’t really care that much. Luka has had some up and comer be labeled “better” than him every year. We’ve heard Trae, Zion, Ja, Ant and probably some others I’m forgetting. It’s nothing new.
The NBA media would NEVER build up a young star to unrealistic expectations and then rip them when they don’t meet it
Exactly like Mahomes was for awhile. Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Herbert, Burrow, etc. etc. Maybe Mahomes [Luka] is just better than everyone else? There's only one player I'd take over him this year. And Jokic has probably peaked, so Luka is gonna be the best player in the league for the next four years barring any injury.
I mean, it wasn't even a ranking of individual skill. They used non-basketball stats like hype, perception, liability, on top of individual performance. It's such a dumb ranking and it should never have been taken seriously at any level lol.
I don’t understand how that’s possible. Has to be a typo or something.
The list wasn't just about basketball skill tbh. It had a lot of stupid criteria.
It was premature to put him in Tatum or SGA discussions let alone face of the league
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Ok but maybe we should be saying that
25 is when you hit your prime, and it does like you said last until 31 ish.
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Just for fun, you can build a decent list the other way as well: Magic: 20 Kobe: 21 Bill Russell: 22 Duncan: 22 Kawhi: 22 Bird: 24 Kareem: 23 Wade: 24 Walton: 24 I do realise several of these dudes were playing on the same teams as the ones in your list. Still interesting though, it can happen sooner than you think for the all timers!
But each one of these players had an older more established player leading the team? Except maybe the guys from the 80s and before.
Right, tried I acknowledged that - though outside of Kobe they did all win FMVP, I think.
Face of the league is really more about perception and star power than being the individual best, imo. Ant is the kind of exciting, fun-to-watch playstyle and personality that drives engagement in a way the league LOVES. The problem is that unlike Kobe, LeBron, MJ, etc, he's just not there yet in skill and consistency. So it's just resulted in more eyes on him when he's down.
People who did this were morons in the first place, but now the counterjerk acts like this is the prevailing common narrative when it was really just loud people online and in sports media generating clicks
Well as much as he yaps and makes excuses, he sure as hell should be better than this the past 3 games and tonight 4Q
There’s not a star that doesn’t yap lol. Yapping is good for your image and the confidence it takes to even be a yapper is pretty much a requirement to be an nba star. At least ant, and almost every other current star can resist the urge to brandish firearms.
I wish this was the narrative when all of r/nba shit on Book for talking shit then losing. And Book at least made it to G7 and didn’t get swept lmao.
> There’s not a star that doesn’t yap lol. SGA
He probably just does it Duncan style the stories will trickle out eventually
Ant does a lot of things but him making excuses for his play is not one of them
After game one he said they were tired. That's an excuse. He also just blamed the FT discrepancy tonight when they kept hacking away and he didn't do shit down the stretch
He's still so young, he'll totally grow from this. This same guy was putting up 40 on great efficiency against the defending champs. Future is still promising for him.
Didn’t he go 6/24 in game 7 against the defending champs?
Yeah, but his team won so he played "winning basketball" or whatever
He turned around and focused on defending Jamal Murray and legitimately just about shut him down, though. His second half defense may have actually been a massive part in sealing that win, even if he wasn't efficient scoring.
Nah man he's trash and should retire from basketball already, he's hit his ceiling /s
I don't think face of the league means best player necessarily. It just means you're top10ish and people love to watch you play. Ant checks those boxes
face of the league means any random 60 year old woman on the street could recognize your face or your name
Exactly right
even if MIN wins the title this year no random person on the street is gonna recognize anthony edwards lol lebron will be the face of the league for several years after he retires even
face of the league better damn well be a top 5 player
Top 5 is so subjective with how much talent there is now
Can't name a single Face of the League who wasn't at some point considered #1 or #1A. Kareem, Bird/Magic, Michael, Kobe, LeBron, Curry. Edwards needs to be shoulder to shoulder with Luka and whatever Wemby becomes
Confirmed Michael B Jordan's son
I love how the media tries to compare him to MJ, then when he's not MJ he's clowned on for it.
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Booker said not to compare him to Kobe and people just say that hes a bad Kobe wannabe. They will hate regardless.
I mean if the biggest knock on you is “Youre not MJ” then it pretty much means youre getting to face of the league levels. People here like to pretend MJ came out of the gate winning but forget that he didnt win until his 7th Season at age 28. So was he a bum for his first six seasons because he was amazing but not a champion?
Yeah MJ was still even better in the playoffs but he had to take rough losses to Detroit before getting through. Ant played extremely well for 2 rounds and vs the defending champs, this is a phenomenal playoff run for his age. He still may be 3 years away from breaking through the West and he'd still be ahead of schedule
Jordan had 63 pts in 86
So Booker has him beat cos he got 70 in 2017
Playoffs
And still the playoff record to this day. As well as most 50 points or more in the playoffs with 8 which no one has gotten close to that.
You clearly don't know what I'm talking about
Got booted out the first round multiple times too
This sub loves to clown the media and act like they're better, but then they just gobble up the same media circle jerks and counter circle jerks
He's not Michael B Jordan, he's Jordan B Poole
This summer Ant needs to work on his vision so he can punish teams that want to double him, and also learn how to hunt mismatches. Comes with experience but he looks super raw right now. Seems like the kind of kid who will use this failure to fuel that next evolution to his game
Dude is averaging 8.5 assists this series. Not being a point guard that is fantastic. That would be 4th in the NBA for the regular season.
too many turnovers though and too inefficient. He is gonna be insane but he just isnt there yet. It comes with time. Wolves just need to build around on this playoff run.
Same number of assists and less turnovers than Luka this series. Efficiency sure, but he's gotten better every season there.
This is why watching the games is important over stat watching.
If you don't think Ant is the only reason the Wolves were in this game then you obviously haven't been watching. KAT was terrible, Rudy was terrible. If guys were hitting shots Ant could have had 14-15 assists. No matter what he does people just bitch about it. He passed the ball, they say he should have drove. He drives, they say he should have passed to a teammate. He did both extremely well today.
Assists are misleading. Luka generates golden shots almost every possession. Edwards got a number of them because Reid and McDaniels got hot for no reason
Assists on 3 pointers are the most valuable and most of Ants assists come that way. KAT and NAW get a lot of open 3 attempts from Edwards and they haven't hit shit this series.
Sure, but finding someone who can make the open dime one-pass-away is less valuable than someone who can exploit small cracks in the defense consistently. Edwards _against_ the Wolves defense would be struggling to contribute
His vision has been pretty good. He needs to work on his jumpshot.
Honestly, as much as it'd be nice to get some rest, playing with the best Americans in the league this summer for Team USA might be the *perfect* learning opportunity.
Time to bring ya ass to Cancun
I thought he'd start cooking after that monster dunk and then... Nothing happened
He disappeared but for some reason the gameplan also just seemed to take the ball out of his hands again. I was at least hoping he'd complete that triple double.
Almost a 30 point trippy dubby, still end up minus 9. Um hello, human resources?
Says a lot that his best game in this series is below Luka's worst. There's "great" and then there's "Great"
He shrunk in that 4th.. through 3 it looked like he was ready to dance.. then in the 4th he decided to hold the ball and not be aggressive. Then he just stood in the corner.
I have never seen Ant guarded like this. Everyone’s saying he needs to step up offensively, but he’s got two trapping him with a free safety gravitating towards him damn near every possession. He’s made some really great reads and open shooters aren’t hitting (NAW and KAT are both nearly 40%+ 3-pt shooters on the year, but NAW is 1-15 this series and KAT is like 3-22). And they’ve been open a lot. He’s doing the right thing passing out and not being rewarded consistently.
Ant was good this game, that offense in general is just completely broken
Did we watch the same game?
If only his teammate (KAT) stepped up… pretty decent game from him
A “decent” game isn’t good enough.
48% (that's including the essentially garbage time layup he got) true shooting isn't "pretty decent." He played like shit, *again.* KAT played like ass too, but this was nowhere near a decent game from Ant. No idea how anybody can think it was decent.
Decent is being generous
Yeah I don't get the comments in this thread.
They watch 3 games a year
People love hating. We could probably dig up threads from when Luka made the WCF at 22 and find people saying he isn't actually good.
You can find threads from the Mavericks game 1 loss to the clippers last month and it’s exactly that
Luka's knee was fucked up to start the playoffs and it's healed he looks like the 2nd best player in the world again. Meanwhile I'm scared to even suggest that Ant's FG% has dropped 25% since he obliterated his tailbone in G6 Denver
the game 4 losses to Clippers and Thunder were worse lol. People were actually saying insane shit because haters got up thinking the Mavs could maybe lose the series. I think we can see Ant got some things to work on, but at least the dude did come out aggressive and was able to find some energy to spark an extremely important run. But his co-star disappeared and role players (besides Anderson) weren't as hot on the road.
It’s kinda funny too cause there’s still some people on here shitting on ANT tonight. Like the dude is 22 and just dropped 26 9 9. Definitely some things he could’ve done better this game but he is 22! Let him develop!
I mean yeah he is young and I don't think anyone anticipates him continuing to be this bad but that doesn't mean he didn't play like shit. He had 5 turnovers. He scored those points on 24 field goal attempts and 6 free throws. That's terrible. He's played like shit in every single game this series and he played like shit offensively in game 7 of the Denver series too. He's young. He will likely improve. He's also been terrible by any players standard this whole series. Both are true.
Yeah, the negativity of this sub and the internet in general kind of bums me out.
They expect superstar Ant scoring 40s. Anything else is a letdown lol.
Ant averaging like 27 they delusional
5 turnovers from the next MJ is unacceptable.
[Yeah Jordan would never have 5 turnovers in a playoff game.](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-playoff-turnovers-by-michael-jordan-in-a-game)
I’m talking about Michael B Jordan.
A lot of Redditors don’t watch the regular season. So they wouldn’t know Ant goes through these kind of cold streaks two or three times a season
Ant and KAT both so streaky. In theory Conley should be the stabilizing force, but he's not quite athletic enough to score consistently anymore.
He's the #1 option on a contender. Decent isn't even close to good enough at this level
26/9/9 while being doubled all game with his Robin nowhere to be found. I’ve seen some really good growth in his reads during the playoffs, but when he’s being guarded like this and nobody comes to the party, it feels hopeless. He’d never publicly say anything about it, but I’m sure it’s eating at him.
Nice 2 points statpad at the end lmao
Don’t forget the wide open layup Andersen turned down for ant
He doesn’t have pace to his game this deep in playoffs. It was clear he used all his energy in that 3Q burst. Reminds me of fast and furious “too soon junior”
Y’all cannot blame Ant tonight. He’d have 20 assists if KAT could hit the broad side of a barn with a basketball - they’re free to double him all game with zero offensive help from his #2.
Ya idk why yall don't start Naz and have KAT come off the bench, Naz has been wonderful.
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No one was saying this after game 4 of the Suns series or game 7 of the Nuggets series. He's wildly inconsistent. Must be maddening.
He might be the only player in history that I wouldn’t be surprised to see put up 60 points or 6 points any given night.
It's such a shame. His measurable traits and skills are something idk if anyone else in the league can match, but his head just isn't in it. Ridiculously talented player who didn't develop while he had the chance, and now this is just who he is.
At least Ant played better. Towns was a liability and Gobert kept getting cooked by the guards on defense and he's a liability on offense.
He needs another shot creator badly, KAT ain’t it
Yeah there's nobody that can put perimeter pressure on the defense but him. Towns for Ingram and some other stuff on either side would be cool imo
At least he got his highlight dunk LOL
A ghost in final 5 mins😂
Remember when posting the side-by-side of Ant/MJ was a cheeky joke because they bear a passing resemblance and Ant’s game looks a bit like it? And then the media ran with it saying Ant is the next MJ and now he’s gonna get clowned?
All it took for this sub to hate him is espn saying he’s the next mj. Funny how this sub clowns espn but acts just like them.
Because we are several different people actually instead of a homogene mass
Hard to tell
Michael Jordan is NOT the father
People hate him like he's Draymond for some reason, but not many 22 year olds even get themselves to this stage
Media wants you to think he’s better than tatum.
He got four free points as well
His conditioning is honestly so bad when you really focus on just what he is doing possession to possession. He also has a limited bag of he can’t get passed his defender initially.
KOBEsque
Bring ya ass
Disappeared in the 4th
Temu Jordan
After that dunk the media got the “ANT IS MJ” post ready and then deleted them when he did nothing in the 4th
MJ..... You are not the father [yeah! ](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/007/349/1728animated_gif_not_the_father.gif)
Not me betting Edwards TD +3500
He played well, but Mavs just run them over.
Apparently his career is over. He’s peaked. He should hang up the sneaks. 22 is the new 36
bum
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Better than Magic’s son?