Ant's injury

if ant hadn't been injured to the things I would have wanted to get to first in this show today, number one, we went into the season thinking that the fatal flaw for this team might be rebounding and they are destroying people on the boards.

Uh, and number two, uh, I like pretty much everything I saw out of the first four games, except third quarter against Cleveland.

I thought the ball stopped moving and it was like LaMelo ball didn't exist.

And Ant was just going to just play one on five.

And I didn't like that, even though he was very productive.

I didn't love the way that looked.

Let's go with the rebounding first.

How surprised are you that they're rebounding this well? And will that category still be a strength with Ant out?

Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly surprised, and I can tell you, I think people internally, coaches, executives, are surprised as well that it's gone as overwhelmingly positive as it has.

There was real concern going into this season about how the Wolves were going to... hold up on the offensive and defensive glass without that muscle surplus that they'd had with Julius Randle and with Nas Reed.

But that has not just not been a weakness.

It's been an incredible strength for them.

And I think that the thing that stands out about the rebounding for the Timberwolves is the urgency with which they are playing.

You know, we watched this team last year, Jim, where, just kind of muddle through and go through the motions for so much of that regular season and we were you know it it was always the sense of yeah we'll just turn it on when the playoffs come around and that'll and that'll be fine and they ended up just turning it on against Denver and and and won that series but uh one of the frustrating things of this group was like Man, you guys got to play a lot harder now.

Like, you are not playing with that edge.

You are not playing with that respect for the game that is required of a team that wants to be in the top four in the West and wants to really go deep into the playoffs.

But this team... has come out with just a ferocious mentality.

And Ant grabbed 10 rebounds in the first game, and I think that really did set a tone a little bit for the other wings because Chris Finch has always said, what we have to do is get rebounding from everyone, including the backcourt, to help... mitigate uh you know our size uh deficiency up front and rudy is rebounding unbelievably well he had 20 rebounds against cleveland um yolan baron jay is it has been very good in that department especially on the offensive side you have io lamello is a good rebounder jayden is rebounding more and you It's just a collective will that this team has shown this year that was not present last year.

And so I do think that that is, for me, in terms of what my expectations were for this season, that clearly has been the biggest surprise.

I kind of thought... hey, maybe LaMelo and Ant will have great chemistry early and the offense will look good.

Maybe some of the switchability that Kaminga and Jaden bring defensively, that you can see as a real thing that you could expect to go well early in the season.

But I did not expect them to be just hammering teams on the boards the way that they have.

And I think that really bodes well for them while Ant is out, actually, because...

it just means it's going to require everyone to play even harder.

And I think that they have already set a baseline of expectation for how hard they're going to play.