monsterpile wrote:FNG wrote:This was an important and impressive win for the Timberwolves. And how weird to see them win the 3rd quarter 39-21...a quarter that has been killing us all year.
A lot of the talk about last night will center on Ant's offense and Rudy and Jaden's defense. And it should...they were all extraordinary. But I thought Russell had his best game of the season and was a huge factor in the win. (I know many like it when DLo has his rare 4th quarter heroics, and I admit it's fun. But I much prefer the all around game he gave us last night.). 19-5-3 and 2 steals on only 17 shots...and no turnovers. More important to me was his improved play as the "low man" on defense. Too many times I have seen DLo struggle when a rotation puts him as low man...he gets caught too far in the paint and isn't able to provide any defense on the open 3-point shooter. It's especially maddening to me because his presence in the paint often is unnecessary (and too often ineffective) when Rudy is already there. Last night I found his defensive positioning much better, and it resulted in far fewer open threes than we normally see when he (or Nowell) are out there. We held the Pellies to 31.8% 3-point shooting, and I give a lot of the credit to Jaden on Ingram and DLo's better perimeter defense.
Great win! Sure they were missing Zion, but I would argue we were more hamstrung without KAT, JMac and Prince. Our normally effective bench is just not that good with those three guys out, because SloMo (forced to start with KAT out), Prince and JMac have all been so impressive off the bench this year. We simply have to get healthy soon if we want to challenge for that 4th spot in the conference.
Prince has played 28 games this year. The Wolves record in those games? 17-11
There has been a lot of injuries in the WC this year and that coupled with trying not to be homers I think to some extent the Wolves injuries have actually been downplayed a bit by us as a whole. Towns being out is a big deal. He is at least an all-star level players and in the league now that's a really good player. McLaughlin being out hurts partly because nobody else replicates what he does...ok actually Anderson kinda does. Prince is pretty important too. Meanwhile Nowell is a guy that just hasn't been as good as the team or we would have hoped. Still the Wolves are .500 at this point. I know they started out disappointing when healthy and playing with meh effort etc but it feels like despite everything they are now hanging on reasonably well with some guys maybe helping a bit more than expected like Naz or Rivers after a slow start and Garza showing he might be a worthwhile NBA player. It's not a rosy picture but again all things considered including some other important guys missing some games here and there .500 ain't a bad spot to be in.
Statistically, no Wolves player has had anything close to the impact on winning that Prince has had. The problem with Prince is that he can't stay healthy. Injuries have been his hallmark for years and unfortunately it doesn't look like he's turned any sort of corner. I love the way he plays and the way he carries himself. And I love the substantial impact hs has on winning. But we need him on the court for far more than slightly over half our game.
