AbeVigodaLive wrote:Going from a strict +/- angle... Gobert is the reason the Wolves lost.
Not just because he was ejected for an egregious and stupid trip... but he was also -11 in only 9 minutes.
[Note: I'd chime in on reasons why +/- for certain players might need some context, but we've been over that too many times now to count. It's just one stat of many, so relying on it as THE stat to judge a player's performance for one specific game... meh.]
Seldom is one person "the" reason for a loss, and that is the situation here too. That said, I would agree that Gobert was the primary reason for the loss because of his childish behavior that resulted in an (unwarranted) ejection. Yes, he was a negative during his minutes on the court, but it was becoming clear that undersized OkC had no answer for him inside (6 points on just 3 shots and 4 rebounds in his 9 minutes), and he was on his way to a big statistical game. It's also likely he would have provided some deterrence to SGA around the rim if he had played his usual 30+ minutes. And we have little chance to win with both our 7 footers out.
But I would also give honorary mention to Jaden's inability to guard SGA without fouling and thus being limited to 18 minutes, and Russell's indifferent and ineffective defense...both were as maddening to me as Gobert's stupidity.
I'm not aware of any poster here who relies on +/- as THE stat. Personally, I look at a myriad of stats depending on the role the player plays ...efficient shooting and A:TO ratio are two of my favorites in evaluating a PG. But when a certain player (and we know the dozen or so around the league we are talking about here) has consistently performed poorly throughout his career in this particular stat (again, one of many stats), it seems lazy to me to not analyze why that continues to happen. Unfortunately nobody has come up with a reliable stat to evaluate a certain player's defensive effectiveness, and that is a major reason for the division here in evaluating DLo's performance in this particular game (and perhaps his entire career). Some focus primarily on the offensive side of the ball and praise (fairly) DLo's offensive effectiveness in this game. But others can't help but observe how often we are left playing 4 on 5 on defense, and how easy it is for our opponent to score when he is out there.
My overall thought about this game though is that it was quite entertaining, despite the maddening defensive lapses. Giddy and SGA are really fun to watch. The Wolves shot almost 53% from the field (not as good on threes though) and Ant, DLo, Naz and Jaylen were nearly unstoppable on offense. I don't like losing to an average team like the Thunder at home, but it was still fun to watch and we would have won with Rudy playing his normal minutes. Finchie has a couple things he needs to fix with KAT out (or even with him in, for that matter), but I am far from giving up on this team.
Edit: Oh, and one more thing. Tim is fired from starting GDTs, especially when he chooses to go to the 20th anniversary showing of Love Actually instead of cheering his team on!
