Minnesota Sports Forum

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Not much mention of Ant's post-game interview after that win. He sounded like a drizzled vet who is ready to start doing the small stuff to win games. If this leads to him doing the small things, look out NBA. His comment about not being athletic right now may be the best thing for his growth. Someone made the comment that we are seeing 33 yo Ant in the GDT.

I agree we're seeing some signs of maturity and growth with Ant. I was unhappy with his lack of hustle in final seven seconds of Game 1 (go back and watch it...not good), but this interview a few minutes later made me feel better. Ant has always proven to be a good teammate in post game interviews by praising teammates, but I've noticed some leadership emerging on-court and in huddles. He played his best game of the playoffs Monday. Allowing someone else (Mike or TJ, mostly) to initiate the offense was probably the best strategy for his injuries. It was surprising to see Ant defer, and we don't know if it was because he wasn't feeling anywhere close to 100%, or if he was finally following Finchy's game plan. Either way, it worked.

I've never worried about Ant's skill level or athleticism. For me it's always been his head that was keeping him from reaching his ceiling. But he's still young. The maturing we may be seeing is going to be very good for him and this team.

I mentioned it in the main Spurs/Wolves thread, but to me the theme so far of these playoffs for the Wolves is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I credit this to a combination of things:

1) the one week of preparation Finch and his coaching staff had after the regular season. This ain't their first rodeo in that regard and they have put on a masterclass so far.

2) we really do have players that flip the switch in the playoffs and we have returned to our defensive roots from two seasons ago. No way can someone play defense the way Jaden has been in the playoffs for an 82 game regular season unless you are a 100% pure specialist at it (see NAW circa 2023-24). "But what about OKC?" one might ask. OKC has like 5 guys that are good-to-elite perimeter defenders: Caruso, Dort, Wallace, Mitchell, and JDubs. None of them average more than 28 MPG. Some of those bad regular season Wolves losses were because guys like Ant and Jaden and Randle were simply not giving full effort. We can blame Ant as the most prominent culprit, but he wasn't the only one.

3) We have multiple guys that are able to scale up their usage without losing efficiency. We saw it first with Ayo against Denver. Then Jaden in Game 6. We're now seeing it with Shannon, Jr. It's just very rare for a team to have so many scalable offensive weapons.

Because of these three factors, we do not need Ant to try to be the hero all the time. He can be a cog in the machine where sometimes his heroics are needed, but mostly they're not.

I personally think his injuries have perhaps forced some of this "maturity" we're seeing, as it's cut him down to size athletically and he's having to rely more on his shooting touch and craftiness. But I'll still take a 100% healthy Ant over a humble, injured Ant! We are going to need him.

Very good points, Q, The injury has a lot to do with his deferring, I think. But I'm also seeing him playing more of a vocal leader role on the court and on the bench...nice to see. He's kind of the class clown (I enjoy Ju lovingly shaking his head in a post game interview with Ant when Ant says something silly or funny, of finable), and maybe he didn't think he was perceived as having the gravitas and credibility to play that role. He's the face of the franchise though and our highest scorer...I think it's good for the team if he moves into more of an adult leadership role.

FNG wrote: ↑Wed May 06, 2026 7:11 am I agree we're seeing some signs of maturity and growth with Ant. I was unhappy with his lack of hustle in final seven seconds of Game 1 (go back and watch it...not good), but this interview a few minutes later made me feel better. Ant has always proven to be a good teammate in post game interviews by praising teammates, but I've noticed some leadership emerging on-court and in huddles. He played his best game of the playoffs Monday. Allowing someone else (Mike or TJ, mostly) to initiate the offense was probably the best strategy for his injuries. It was surprising to see Ant defer, and we don't know if it was because he wasn't feeling anywhere close to 100%, or if he was finally following Finchy's game plan. Either way, it worked.

I've never worried about Ant's skill level or athleticism. For me it's always been his head that was keeping him from reaching his ceiling. But he's still young. The maturing we may be seeing is going to be very good for him and this team.

Don't listen to his words, watch his actions.

His jumper has gone from a shooter guiding a shot with too much strength to a soft thing of beauty. That in itself is huge for a scorer. For all the players we dreamed of developing jumpers its nice to see it finally work out for one of our guys. The absolute worst case scenario at this point is that his ability to dominate defensively never materializes and he exists as a great mostly one way player. We can still win with that, but my suspicion is that his competitive drive continues to take over.

On Monday, in spite of the pain that stretch early in the 4th was a thing of beauty all while taking some time as the primary defender on Fox. The lapses are still there but I dont doubt his commitment to improvement at all.