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Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: Flip Saunders’s Son Runs His Dad’s Favorite Play as First NBA Call

Wolves interim head coach Ryan Saunders had to give his late father a shoutout in his first game in charge. 

Dan Gartland

Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: Flip Saunders’s Son Runs His Dad’s Favorite Play as First NBA Call
Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: Flip Saunders’s Son Runs His Dad’s Favorite Play as First NBA Call /

This one’s for his dad

Timberwolves interim head coach Ryan Saunders earned a win in his first game in charge last night against the Thunder. It was an emotional moment not only for the 32-year-old veteran assistant coach but for the whole Minnesota team. 

Saunders has been with the Wolves since 2014, when he joined his father Flip’s coaching staff, and has grown close to the team’s core of young players. Andrew Wiggins even came to his wedding. 

Flip Saunders’s presence is still felt in Minnesota, over four years after the coach, executive and part-owner died of cancer. Karl-Anthony Towns, whose rookie season began immediately after Saunders’s death, tweeted after the game “THIS ONE WAS FOR FLIP.”

Ryan, meanwhile, had a much more subtle tribute to his father. During and interview after the game on NBA TV, Isiah Thomas asked the younger Saunders if he ran a play called “452 twist,” his father’s favorite. It was actually a variation called 552 twist, but Ryan said he knew he had to run it. 

“I only told my mother before the game,” Saunders said. “I had an idea that we might be able to get something off of it. I didn’t know if it was necessarily going to work out, but I had to, just in an ode to him. I’d feel good about myself if I ran his favorite play, first play of the game.”

The play didn’t end up working (the possession ended with Andrew Wiggins chucking up a desperate long two as the shot clock expired) but does that really matter?

UPDATE: Here’s the full play, dug up by someone on Reddit.

Don’t brag about doing anything illegal on a dating app

oklahoma-deer-hunter-caught-dating-app.jpg
Oklahoma Game Wardens

You never know who the other person you’re chatting with on a dating app is. If they’re not a bot, they might be the local game warden—in which case it’s not smart to brag about illegally killing a deer. 

One Oklahoma woman faces $2,400 in fines for poaching after she matched with her county’s game warden and told him about killing a deer out of season. He didn’t let on about who he was and extracted enough information to identify her and bust her at her house. 

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Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.

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Dan Gartland
DAN GARTLAND

Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion (Season 1, Episode 5).

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