KAT IS BACK! (wolves vs. hawks GT)

[kekgeek]

I'm very happy to get the W, but I can't help but feel it shouldn't have been so hard. Our help defense was simply terrible. And to me it looks like Rudy and KAT shouldn't play together very much. When they are both on the floor, we can't do hardly any switching because immediate mismatches are created. Our opponents are always going to try and get Jaden switched off of his man, and they aren't sending Slomo's or Conley's man. They are sending one of the guys our bigs are guarding. So it's very tough to play them together unless we run some zone. Lots of things to work out and not much time to do it. But when we are fully healthy we have an awful lot of firepower.

Cool - It's obvious you've coached. Really astute observations. I'm thrilled with the win but your observations are correct and sobering. I never thought the Rudy-KAT pairing would work - certainly not defensively. It's an issue our front office will need to deal with over the summer. There are reasonable arguments for trading KAT because of the huge return we'd likely get for him. If up to me, I'd trade Rudy, not KAT, even though the return would be a lot less. It would be a lot less for a reason. Rudy gave us 12 rebounds tonight and solid defense. I think we can find free agent bigs to give us 12 points and 12 rebounds via free agency or minor trades. But getting someone who does what KAT does is highly unlikely. If we can get solid defense from our PG position (Conley now and hopefully a younger alternative later), we'll be fine defensively with Edwards and McDaniels. All three are good to great defensively. I'd want to pair KAT up front with a mobile, athletic defensive PF. That would be plenty to cover for KAT's defensive weakness. Fortunately, KAT's a very good rebounder as well as an elite efficient scorer. That's the path I see for this team. The Edwards-McDaniels pairing is exciting.

Not including tonight (numbers not updated yet) in the 21 games Gobert and Kat played together. They were in the 96th percentile in defense. What id a whole 2 pts per 100 possessions better than the #1 defensive team in the NBA.

Who knows how it will go long term but in those 21 games that 2 man pair was one of the most elite defensive pairings in the NBA. (Offense was another story it was really bad in the 6th percentile)

[Coolbreeze44]

The Return of Abe's Late Game DVR Review (a bit tipsy edition):


- I'm making a declaration and surely the first to do so... but McDanels is basically Scottie Pippen v2.0

I believe I was the first to declare it, and in fact, you basically called me a moron for saying it.

[AbeVigodaLive]

The Return of Abe's Late Game DVR Review (a bit tipsy edition):


- I'm making a declaration and surely the first to do so... but McDanels is basically Scottie Pippen v2.0

I believe I was the first to declare it, and in fact, you basically called me a moron for saying it.

LOL.

LMAO.

[Lipoli390]

The Return of Abe's Late Game DVR Review (a bit tipsy edition):


- I'm making a declaration and surely the first to do so... but McDanels is basically Scottie Pippen v2.0

I believe I was the first to declare it, and in fact, you basically called me a moron for saying it.

I believe I was the second moron to compare McDaniels to Scottie Pippen. :)

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Sarcasm still isn't received well by some here. Perhaps text makes it more difficult to register...

Also, Jaden McDaniels has shown considerable growth this season, but the Scottie Pippen comparisons are still way off to me. Setting expectations for McDaniels that I don't think he'll ever come close to reaching.

Pippen was a tremendous rebounder and playmaker from the wing on top of being his team's secondary scorer and priority defender. McDaniels is certainly the latter as a legitimate All-Defensive Team candidate, but he hasn't proven to be much more than a floor spacer through three seasons. There's some natural scoring and passing abilities that occasionally shine, but it's not in his game consistently enough to garner mentions of Pippen. Mind you, Pippen was also an All-Star at 24. Is that McDaniels' future in a year or two? I don't see it.

I still think we're looking at a Mikal Bridges, Jerami Grant, Andrei Kirilenko combination at forward, which is plenty valuable enough. Pippen talk is far-fetched.

[Lipoli390]

I'm very happy to get the W, but I can't help but feel it shouldn't have been so hard. Our help defense was simply terrible. And to me it looks like Rudy and KAT shouldn't play together very much. When they are both on the floor, we can't do hardly any switching because immediate mismatches are created. Our opponents are always going to try and get Jaden switched off of his man, and they aren't sending Slomo's or Conley's man. They are sending one of the guys our bigs are guarding. So it's very tough to play them together unless we run some zone. Lots of things to work out and not much time to do it. But when we are fully healthy we have an awful lot of firepower.

Cool - It's obvious you've coached. Really astute observations. I'm thrilled with the win but your observations are correct and sobering. I never thought the Rudy-KAT pairing would work - certainly not defensively. It's an issue our front office will need to deal with over the summer. There are reasonable arguments for trading KAT because of the huge return we'd likely get for him. If up to me, I'd trade Rudy, not KAT, even though the return would be a lot less. It would be a lot less for a reason. Rudy gave us 12 rebounds tonight and solid defense. I think we can find free agent bigs to give us 12 points and 12 rebounds via free agency or minor trades. But getting someone who does what KAT does is highly unlikely. If we can get solid defense from our PG position (Conley now and hopefully a younger alternative later), we'll be fine defensively with Edwards and McDaniels. All three are good to great defensively. I'd want to pair KAT up front with a mobile, athletic defensive PF. That would be plenty to cover for KAT's defensive weakness. Fortunately, KAT's a very good rebounder as well as an elite efficient scorer. That's the path I see for this team. The Edwards-McDaniels pairing is exciting.

Not including tonight (numbers not updated yet) in the 21 games Gobert and Kat played together. They were in the 96th percentile in defense. What id a whole 2 pts per 100 possessions better than the #1 defensive team in the NBA.

Who knows how it will go long term but in those 21 games that 2 man pair was one of the most elite defensive pairings in the NBA. (Offense was another story it was really bad in the 6th percentile)

Interesting stat, kek. I'll go with the numbers over my observations. But it was a small small sample size. I just have a hard time envisioning KAT effectively guarding today's athletic PFs. KAT's not a bad athlete, but he relies more on size and skill than quickness or athleticism. Not that he's particularly good guarding centers. :) But except for Embiid, I think he can hold his own defensively against the vast majority of centers. I think he pairs better defensively with a mobile, athletic big. The two should be better offensively than the 6% stat you provided, but I'll chalk that up to small sample size as well. It will be interesting to see how those two perform over the next eight games and in the playoffs if the Wolves make it that far. And since both will probably be here next season, we should get a more than ample sample size to evaluate the pairing by this time next year.

[kekgeek]

I'm very happy to get the W, but I can't help but feel it shouldn't have been so hard. Our help defense was simply terrible. And to me it looks like Rudy and KAT shouldn't play together very much. When they are both on the floor, we can't do hardly any switching because immediate mismatches are created. Our opponents are always going to try and get Jaden switched off of his man, and they aren't sending Slomo's or Conley's man. They are sending one of the guys our bigs are guarding. So it's very tough to play them together unless we run some zone. Lots of things to work out and not much time to do it. But when we are fully healthy we have an awful lot of firepower.

Cool - It's obvious you've coached. Really astute observations. I'm thrilled with the win but your observations are correct and sobering. I never thought the Rudy-KAT pairing would work - certainly not defensively. It's an issue our front office will need to deal with over the summer. There are reasonable arguments for trading KAT because of the huge return we'd likely get for him. If up to me, I'd trade Rudy, not KAT, even though the return would be a lot less. It would be a lot less for a reason. Rudy gave us 12 rebounds tonight and solid defense. I think we can find free agent bigs to give us 12 points and 12 rebounds via free agency or minor trades. But getting someone who does what KAT does is highly unlikely. If we can get solid defense from our PG position (Conley now and hopefully a younger alternative later), we'll be fine defensively with Edwards and McDaniels. All three are good to great defensively. I'd want to pair KAT up front with a mobile, athletic defensive PF. That would be plenty to cover for KAT's defensive weakness. Fortunately, KAT's a very good rebounder as well as an elite efficient scorer. That's the path I see for this team. The Edwards-McDaniels pairing is exciting.

Not including tonight (numbers not updated yet) in the 21 games Gobert and Kat played together. They were in the 96th percentile in defense. What id a whole 2 pts per 100 possessions better than the #1 defensive team in the NBA.

Who knows how it will go long term but in those 21 games that 2 man pair was one of the most elite defensive pairings in the NBA. (Offense was another story it was really bad in the 6th percentile)

Interesting stat, kek. I'll go with the numbers over my observations. But it was a small small sample size. I just have a hard time envisioning KAT effectively guarding today's athletic PFs. KAT's not a bad athlete, but he relies more on size and skill than quickness or athleticism. Not that he's particularly good guarding centers. :) But except for Embiid, I think he can hold his own defensively against the vast majority of centers. I think he pairs better defensively with a mobile, athletic big. The two should be better offensively than the 6% stat you provided, but I'll chalk that up to small sample size as well. It will be interesting to see how those two perform over the next eight games and in the playoffs if the Wolves make it that far. And since both will probably be here next season, we should get a more than ample sample size to evaluate the pairing by this time next year.

Ya, that's fair lip. I personally don't love Kat guarding and I agree eye test I don't love how it works defensively. So that is why I brought it up because in those 21 games the defense was elite with those 2 together even though general perception would think otherwise. Similar to Rudy on post ups, it looks so ugly, like so ugly but he is the 13th most efficient post up player in the NBA with so least 50 post ups (there is like 70ish players that qualify).

As you know over the years I love numbers when it comes to basketball so I thought those numbers were relevant to this discussion because like you and Cool, my thought process would be this defense should not work even though the numbers say the opposite

[FNG]

I'm very happy to get the W, but I can't help but feel it shouldn't have been so hard. Our help defense was simply terrible. And to me it looks like Rudy and KAT shouldn't play together very much. When they are both on the floor, we can't do hardly any switching because immediate mismatches are created. Our opponents are always going to try and get Jaden switched off of his man, and they aren't sending Slomo's or Conley's man. They are sending one of the guys our bigs are guarding. So it's very tough to play them together unless we run some zone. Lots of things to work out and not much time to do it. But when we are fully healthy we have an awful lot of firepower.

Cool - It's obvious you've coached. Really astute observations. I'm thrilled with the win but your observations are correct and sobering. I never thought the Rudy-KAT pairing would work - certainly not defensively. It's an issue our front office will need to deal with over the summer. There are reasonable arguments for trading KAT because of the huge return we'd likely get for him. If up to me, I'd trade Rudy, not KAT, even though the return would be a lot less. It would be a lot less for a reason. Rudy gave us 12 rebounds tonight and solid defense. I think we can find free agent bigs to give us 12 points and 12 rebounds via free agency or minor trades. But getting someone who does what KAT does is highly unlikely. If we can get solid defense from our PG position (Conley now and hopefully a younger alternative later), we'll be fine defensively with Edwards and McDaniels. All three are good to great defensively. I'd want to pair KAT up front with a mobile, athletic defensive PF. That would be plenty to cover for KAT's defensive weakness. Fortunately, KAT's a very good rebounder as well as an elite efficient scorer. That's the path I see for this team. The Edwards-McDaniels pairing is exciting.

Not including tonight (numbers not updated yet) in the 21 games Gobert and Kat played together. They were in the 96th percentile in defense. What id a whole 2 pts per 100 possessions better than the #1 defensive team in the NBA.

Who knows how it will go long term but in those 21 games that 2 man pair was one of the most elite defensive pairings in the NBA. (Offense was another story it was really bad in the 6th percentile)

Interesting stat, kek. I'll go with the numbers over my observations. But it was a small small sample size. I just have a hard time envisioning KAT effectively guarding today's athletic PFs. KAT's not a bad athlete, but he relies more on size and skill than quickness or athleticism. Not that he's particularly good guarding centers. :) But except for Embiid, I think he can hold his own defensively against the vast majority of centers. I think he pairs better defensively with a mobile, athletic big. The two should be better offensively than the 6% stat you provided, but I'll chalk that up to small sample size as well. It will be interesting to see how those two perform over the next eight games and in the playoffs if the Wolves make it that far. And since both will probably be here next season, we should get a more than ample sample size to evaluate the pairing by this time next year.

Ya, that's fair lip. I personally don't love Kat guarding and I agree eye test I don't love how it works defensively. So that is why I brought it up because in those 21 games the defense was elite with those 2 together even though general perception would think otherwise. Similar to Rudy on post ups, it looks so ugly, like so ugly but he is the 13th most efficient post up player in the NBA with so least 50 post ups (there is like 70ish players that qualify).

As you know over the years I love numbers when it comes to basketball so I thought those numbers were relevant to this discussion because like you and Cool, my thought process would be this defense should not work even though the numbers say the opposite

I thought KAT made a giant leap last season in his perimeter defense, so I'm still hopeful Kek's numbers hold up and the Twin Towers strategy works. Last night I thought it was a problem though...there were several times my section was cringing at some defensive lapses by KAT that led to easy buckets. I was heartened though by KAT taking ownership for those lapses in his post-game conference, saying there were several new things we're doing on defense, and he hadn't been able to practice with the team yet. Made sense to me, as I noticed several times SloMo or Rudy pulling him aside after a missed assignment...it was good to see KAT nodding his head. I think he'll figure it out.

[FNG]

Target Center was rocking and rolling last night from the moment KAT sprinted out of the tunnel like Willis Reed (!) and made his first dunk in the layup line! What a fun night at TC, and although we made hard work of it, ultimately we won a game we had to win. A couple observations:

Very lucky that final offensive play wasn't called a hook on Karl-Anthony Towns, but good for him for making two high-pressure free throws.

And as I type this, Towns is having a very cringe post-game interview. He's back!

Idk I dig showing love to his teammates. Might been best thing to ever happen to this team was his injury. Everyone has gotten better and bought into their roles with him gone.

Nailed it, jester, but I would add Ant's injury to your narrative. There were concerns here that this team wouldn't have enough offensive firepower AD, but it seems those concerns were not warranted. We always knew KAT and Ant could score, but guys like Jaden, Conley, Prince and Naz have gotten more aggressive in looking for their shot...even after KAT returned. Sure, we went to KAT in the final seconds, but it's good to know we have plenty of options on offense. And our secondary scorers are going to have plenty of open looks once Ant returns.

Target Center was rocking and rolling from the time KAT sprinted out of the tunnel a la Willis Reed (!) and made his first dunk in the layup line! We made hard work of it, but ultimately won a game we needed to win. A really fun night in downtown Minneapolis!

Finchie is obviously trying to figure out his rotations with all the fun toys he has to play with, and the absence of JMac complicated things last night. I love the way he mixed and matched to find the right combination, and I only had one bug objection...NAW cannot be the primary ballhandler on the court. When either of our two PGs is out, Finchie needs to turn to SloMo as our second ballhandler.

Trae Young got some foul calls that pissed off the crowd (and me), but he is a terrific offensive player. Jaden had some issues with him early, but NAW and Conley defended him well in some short stints. And I thought JayDee did a great job on him in the 4th quarter. He wrapped him up in a big blanket on the inbound pass with 3.6 seconds left...there was no way he was going to let Trae touch the ball on that final possession. More evidence that Jaden was our MVP last night.

I will add a shout out to our efficient bench scoring though. Naz and Prince had 41 points on only 23 shots.

[Monster]

The Return of Abe's Late Game DVR Review (a bit tipsy edition):

- NBA players make a lot of mistakes... and good plays. I thought the first 7 minutes T. Prince stepped on the court that he was throwing the game (sans one made 3). He threw the ball away lazily. He forced shots. He lazily went under screens for easy threes. He missed a rotation for an open three. Fast forward a couple of quarters and he is stepping up and making smart veteran NBA plays to help his team eke out a win. Go figure.

- Towns is back. 2 more offensive fouls (the O/U is always 2). And as Camden spelled out nicely... a really cringy interview. I gotta be honest, I never understood what corny meant, especially because I hear more black people say it and I'm pretty middle European/scandinavian, but I understand now after seeing that interview.

- I'm making a declaration and surely the first to do so... but McDanels is basically Scottie Pippen v2.0

- NBA players want to win games. But sometimes, NBA players REALLY WANT to win games! Tonight, the Wolves WANTED to win. There were many signs of this in the final few minutes but for anybody who has it on DVR... watch the play with 3:52 left. See all the white shirts react like their shared tabby cat was on fire? That's a team that wants to win.

- The behind-the-scene NBA offices are littered with coaches, analysts, nerd geeks and the like... all to find points in the margins. Meh. They're thinking too small. Just pay me $200k to be your team's "foul creator coach." Trae Young gave his team (xx) points with a wide assortment of "foul creations."

- Young's foul creations didn't just give his team points, they could have taken away the soul of the Timberwolves. The Wolves put on their big boy pants and willed themselves to victory. Nice.

Excellent post Abe I thought the Wolves pulling out this win was kinda impressive.