“I can sense that guys, when they drive in the paint, they’re really confident finding me and in the pocket,” Gobert said. “That’s the work. I’ve been working a lot on those situation and it’s great to have their trust.”
That trust between Gobert and Edwards has taken time to build, but Edwards has been looking Gobert’s way more frequently at the start of this season than he did in the past. Two of Edwards’ six assists were to Gobert, with both buckets coming in the second half. One came when Edwards hit Gobert with a pass over a double team and Gobert finished with an authoritative dunk plus a foul.
“Rudy been working. He been working,” Edwards said. “It’s a difference when you see people work. Like you start to trust them a little more. You make that pass. He been working, and we have no reason to not trust him.”
Julius Randle added 22 points on 8-for-15 shooting while Jaden McDaniels had 19 points on 6-for-7. Mike Conley, at 37, became the oldest player in team history to record a double-double with 14 points and 11 assists. Rod Strickland had held the record at 36 years, 191 days since getting 12 points and 10 assists against Portland on Jan. 18, 2003.
Conley helped ignite the fourth-quarter run with a patented play he trots out maybe once a game, so as not to overuse it. He drew an offensive foul on a moving screen from Chicago’s Nikola Vucevic (25 points). Conley sold the contact and the whistle came for a foul the other way. Conley smiled as he described his strategy to get the referees to make the call. Conley sensed Vucevic was a bit out of position and would have to step to reach him, so in that moment he took a different angle as they met to draw contact.
“You only do it once a game. The momentum was shifting … and just felt that was the right time to slow the game down, get the ball back,” Conley said.
