Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ding here on the Athletic NBA show.

I am Jared Weiss.

I am joined by Mo DeKeele, as I am every Wednesday.

We got Brian Smith on the boards in Mo.

The Minnesota Timberwolves, they beat the New York Knicks at MSG 112 to 110. On the very weird ending where Julius Randall makes a really nice kickout to, I think it was Alec Berks in the corner who hits a three, but they have to wave it off because Randall got fouled. And of course Randall does not hit the free throws. So Randall misses the free throws. Doesn't hurt them as much as you would think though, Jared, because Pat Beverly misses his free throws and it's still a two point game. The Knicks are without a timeout. They run down the court. Give credit to Vanderbilt. When Kemble Walker comes off to double screen, he's right there.

Like there's no room for Kemper Walker to even try to beat him off to dribble or anything like

that. And remember, the Knicks just need a two to tie, three wins it. And they're setting up

like a comeback action so that Randall can go screen for Evan Fornier, but Fornier's running way

too quickly. That's all adrenaline. He's thinking, I have a chance to be the hero tonight. And he runs too quickly. The wolves are able to defend it. They got to settle for a tough shot. And man, the wolves actually defend it well and give up an offensive rebound. Then Alex Burke gets it. And Jared, he decides not to kick it to Kemba Walker, who hit three threes in the fourth quarter. No, no, no. I'm going to shoot this one on my own. He misses and the wolves will come away with a victory. And I mean, the wolves, they won this game because they got their star offensive player to come through in the fourth quarter. Of course, I'm talking about Jalen, taking on Julius Randall scoring over him. I mean, it didn't matter who they put in front of him. He was just hitting these floaters in the lane over and over again. After three quarters, only three points, but you knew the giant was going to wake up at some point. And he goes off for 11 points. It was huge. It was almost like a battle at one point, Jared, between Kemba Walker and Jalen,

Noel.

Like it was a real interesting kind of back and forth. Walker would hit a three. Noel would come down the other end and hit a three. It was, it was a fun, fun game, to be honest. Yeah, and Kembo, did he miss nine games with, uh, with the knee issue and he comes back and he's great in the fourth quarter.

It's funny, he in the fourth quarter.

It's funny, he played the first quarter, had a long sit, then kind of started to get his rhythm in the early second half as the Knicks kind of chipped away because the wolves were up by double digits for most of that second quarter and entering that third quarter.

But credit to the Knicks, they really did push back for a while until Minnesota pulled it out in the end. I mean, yeah, that third quarter, though, they really kind of went nuts. The Knicks started moving the ball more, a lot better possessions. Ball was flying around a 40 point fourth quarter for the Knicks. They're not a good offensive team, Jared. They don't do that that often. And we also got to give some love to Evan

Fornier, who again, had one of those random nights where he continues to go off and catch his fire,

scores 27 points, missed a couple of critical open corner three so down the stretch that really hurt

the Knicks. Well, you went five for 10 from deep, 10 for 17 from the field. That's pretty nice.

And four dimes as well. Minnesota, Anthony Edwards, 21 points eight for 17 from the field. That's pretty nice. And four dimes as well. Minnesota, Anthony Edwards, 21 points, 8 for 17 from the field. Carl Towns, 20 points, 6 for 12 from the field. Towns had some good moments there in crunch time. And Pat Bev had a big defensive play in crunch time. Right after getting called for a defensive three second play, they were using him as a role man to kick it out at one point he had a team high six times what do you think of the way that

this minnesota starting lineup is performing they're playing pretty solid basketball maybe not the

greatest all the time you know there are moments where it looks good and they drop off and

things like that and a little bit shaky, but they're playing pretty good

basketball and the way they move the ball, the way they're looking to try to find each

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