CoolBreeze44 wrote:sjm34 wrote:I'm a little surprised at the overreaction to the loss tonight. This is the MO for this team.
I am most concerned with two areas. Finch doesn't seem to have any idea of when to use his challenge. There are three criteria he should be looking for.
1) One of our main players have committed a foul (specfically guys like Mcdaniels or Edwards).
2) We have the chance to take points away (no foul shots).
3) We will gain possession of the ball.
Notice that "time of game" doesn't enter into it.
I would love to know how many games he actually uses his challenge, because he seems to think he needs to save it for later in the game. Tonight he saved us a point which was meaningless.
My other area of concern is no other scorer down the stretch. We needed DLO tonight!
You can't have another scorer when the primary scorer won't give up the ball.
Edwards took 26 shots tonight. Beal took 28. Beal simply made more of his shots. Ja Morant took 26 shots last night in a winning effort. He only made 8 of them. But other guys picked up the slack. One of their two bigs, Jackson Jr. took 19 shots, a few more than Rudy took tonight. But four of Jackson's made shots were three-pointers and he got to the line 7 times, hitting 6 of them. Star, ball-dominant players take a lot of shots. So there's nothing particularly troublesome about our star, Ant, taking 26 shots. He just didn't make some shots he should make while our point guards provided no scoring and our bench very little. The guy who took the next most shots for the Wolves was Rudy Gobert. They were all at the basket, yet he still missed nearly half of them with only 2 foul shots to show for his effort. Rudy Gobert can't have the second most shots on this team. They're all going to be two-point shots and he doesn't get to the line very often.
This team needs KAT. And it needs him even more now with DLO gone. This team was built by Rosas to score. That was its identity. Now it's a team that doesn't really know what it is - a team in search of an identity. Without KAT or DLO, they'll be searching in vain for scoring from someone other than the team's one all-star who has played every game and kept this team in the mix for a playoff birth.
The end of the season is approaching and this team is probably lottery bound even if they happen to make the play-in tournament. At that point, the Wolves front office executives will have to be willing to take an honest look at this team from top to bottom and decide what they want this team's identity to be. They'll need to decide who to put around Ant and McDaniels and who should be at the helm as the team's head coach. If it were up to me I'd go at least another year or two with KAT. Otherwise, everyone else on this team, players and coaches, not named Anthony Edwards or Jaden McDaniels should be considered moveable.
