This is the series we should all be looking forward to.
Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Prince J. Grimes.
What’s up hoops fans. Hope your day is going good. If not, there’s only a few more hours to go before the Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks tip off to hopefully bring a little more joy to the night.
If nothing else, it should be a much more sober game than the drunk mess we witnessed between the Indiana Pacers and Boston Celtics last night.
Talk about nobody wanting to win. I can’t think of another playoff game where both teams appeared so incapable of sealing the deal. First, the Celtics couldn’t put the game away after leading by as much as 13 late in the third quarter. Then, the Pacers couldn’t put it away after leading by five in the last two minutes of the fourth.
Even then, the Celtics failed to snatch the game back, needing a tough corner heave by Jaylen Brown just to tie the game with six seconds left. At home, they just couldn’t seem to take control of a game Indiana very clearly didn’t want either.
Related: Even LeBron James had no idea why the Pacers didn’t foul late while up 3
It was a clinic of turnovers and bad shot-making at the wrong time, with the best players from both teams at the center of it all. Everything you don’t want to do in the closing minutes of a game. The opposite of clutch.
But somebody had to win and the Celtics eventually came out on top in overtime. It wasn’t good basketball, but it was entertaining.
The series in the West will hopefully deliver a little more balance on that scale of good and entertaining. Between Luka Doncic and Anthony Edwards, this series features arguably the two best players remaining in the playoffs. And though I’m fully on the Minnesota bandwagon and picking the Timberwolves to advance in five games, I expect it to be a hard-fought five games.
That begins tonight with Game 1. Hopefully these teams give us something to wash away the Eastern Conference stench.
TNT Sports
Earlier this month, TNT’s Inside The NBA gave hoops fans a good surprise when the broadcast opened its halftime show by playing Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss Euphoria.
The song had only been out for a day at that point but, as Inside The NBA has been so good at doing all these years, the broadcast was able to integrate a moment from pop culture into the show and get some funny reactions from Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal, who were unaware it was about to be played.
If you’ve ever wondered what goes into the decision-making process of choosing songs for the show, you don’t have to wonder any longer. FTW’s Bryan Kalbrosky talked with a few of the good folks at TNT Sports to learn more about how they put together a soundtrack for the show. His story sheds a light on just how much thought goes into everything they do.
Clever audio programming like this has become one of the many secret ingredients that leads to the continued success of Inside the NBA. Music is typically the first part of the halftime studio show and sets up whatever the crew is going to talk about for the next 15 minutes. None of this happens by accident.
“We’re just trying to throw as much stuff in front of Shaq, Charles, Kenny and Ernie that’s going to get a reaction out of them,” Keith Robinson, a TNT Sports studio producer for Inside the NBA, told For The Win. “It created a moment.”
Check out Bryan’s full story on How Inside the NBA’s soundtrack became the unexpected star of the playoffs. It’s definitely worth your time.
(All odds via BetMGM)
C. Morgan Engel/Getty Images
Dallas Mavericks (+155) at Minnesota Timberwolves (-4.5; -190), 8:40 p.m. ET
As I said earlier, I’m rolling with the Wolves in five this series. And as unpopular as that may seem, it’s actually the most favored result at BetMGM with +400 odds — just slightly better than Wolves in seven at +425 and Mavericks in six at +450. So, because that makes my pick for Game 1 fairly obvious, I’ll give a prediction on the 206.5 total and take the under.
With the way Minnesota defends, I think Dallas may need a game to figure how to attack. The Timberwolves were 4-3 to the under in their series against Denver, including the first two games and the last two games. Dallas’ games were 4-2 to the under in their series against the Thunder.
— Ernie Johnson gave an emotional Sports Emmy speech amid Inside The NBA’s uncertain future
— DJ Burns lost 45 pounds since NC State’s March Madness run, while preparing for the NBA Draft
— Paolo Banchero had a classy response about Caitlin Clark receiving more ESPN coverage than the Magic
— The latest 2024 NBA Mock Draft has Bronny James going to the Celtics
And that’s it from me y’all. Enjoy the Mavs-Wolves game.
