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Mike Conley Rumors
Mike Conley to return next season
Qith his love for the game still strong, Mike Conley will return next season dreaming of finally making it as he nears 40. “My body is good,” said Conley, who averaged 8.2 points and 4.5 assists this season. “I could still move, do what I need to do. Sacrifices of the team. I won’t be retiring because I can’t move or anything like that. When the time is done, it will be over with.”
Knowing how tough it is to have a shot at the NBA Finals in a 30-team league, Mike Conley took coming up short again painfully. “When I was walking off the floor I was thinking, ‘Not again.’ It was a nightmare, man,” Conley told Andscape. “Hearing the music and the fans, it was kind of a moment where you hope it ain’t your last chance. You look at every last detail of everything going through your mind. You don’t want to forget it. And you don’t want it to be your last memory of it.”
“I thought we had a run in us in the beginning of the third,” Conley said. “And they just, no matter what we did, if we scored they hit us over the head again on a 6-0 or had another run in them. I was like, ‘Man, it’s going to be hard to break. If we can’t get it under 20, we don’t have a chance.’ And at the end of the third, the beginning of the fourth, it was like, ‘Here we go. This might be it.’ ”
After the game, Edwards struck a similarly optimistic tone as he did after they were eliminated by the Mavericks. As someone who lost his mother and grandmother to cancer when he was 14 years old, he has always said that he does not get hurt by what happens on a basketball court. He gets emboldened by what is to come. “I don’t know why people would think it would hurt. It’s exciting for me,” Edwards said. “I’m 23. I get to do it a whole bunch of times. I’m hurt more so for Mike (Conley). I came up short for Mike. We tried last year, we couldn’t get it. We tried again this year. We’ll try again next year. But hurt is a terrible word to use. I’m good.”
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Jon Krawczynski: Both Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert were very complimentary on Anthony Edwards' offensive approach in 4. Rudy: "A lot of people think basketball is just about scoring 30 every night. It's just not true." Said he was proud of Ant for the way he attacked.
Mike Conley ahead of do-or-die Game 5: We need our best guys to be our best guys
Dave McMenamin: Mike Conley says the Wolves had a team dinner last night and watched Knicks-Pacers. He said he’s continued to encourage Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle for their work to get MIN to this point. And in Game 5? “We need our best guys to be our best guys”
Jorge Sierra: Mike Conley tied Chris Webber in playoff scoring in the game vs. OKC. He's No. 129 all-time now.
Nothing worked in two games in Oklahoma City. Everything worked in the first game in Minnesota, a 143-101 wipeout that did not just put the Wolves on the board in this series, it showed what this team can do when they’re locked in. It showed that the Thunder are not out of their league. More importantly, it showed the Timberwolves the way forward. “Honestly, it just shows us, more than anything, of what we’re capable of doing,” guard Mike Conley said. “So now we’ve set a standard for ourselves, like why aren’t we playing with this type of effort every night? So if we don’t do it the next game, that’s on us. It has nothing to do with them.”
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Before Game 1, Finch admitted that these Wolves have not played much zone this season because this group has not been as proficient at it as last year’s team. Nevertheless, Finch and defensive coordinator Elston Turner added in two new zone schemes to try to mimic some of Denver’s success. “We hadn’t played those zones before, technically, all year,” Conley said. “So it was brand new to us. Guys were kind of slow in rotations as we were trying to do it right, but we’re more of a man-to-man team, a physical team.”
“It was a different energy,” Conley told The Athletic of Edwards, who had 30 points (12 of 17 shooting; five of eight from three), nine rebounds, six assists, two steals and a plus-36 rating. “Normally, he’ll just come in and he’ll just work extra hard, You’ll see him in there just angry. But this was more like he was disgusted in himself. This was, ‘I’m not playing like I should.’ It was almost an embarrassment kind of feeling, and we could just feel that in his energy. He still worked, and he still did his thing. But it was like he just knew that something had to change.”
Dave McMenamin: Mike Conley on Anthony Edwards’ demeanor after a loss: “He always comes in the next day angry”
“I’m having a ball, bro, honestly,” Conley said. “I tell the guys all the time, ‘If you see a day where I’m not smiling and not having a good time and loving being here, tell me to retire. Tell me to go home.’ That is one reason why I’m here. Being around these guys, the atmosphere, the game. The competitive atmosphere every day.
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