Wolves vs Celtics GDT

[FNG]

Glad Jester was able to see such a great game! I wasn't looking forward to going tonight for the Knicks game, but this game changed my mood.

Greg Monroe was always one of my favorite players, and it was fun to watch him tonight. Jim P. kept talking about how comfortable he was in the Princeton system he learned at G-town, but you gotta have cutters to make it work, and our guys reacted...some terrific dimes from him!

So that's what ball movement looks like, huh? 30 dimes on 40 makes...really fun to see the ball move like that.

We're now 1-0 when Monroe and Knight play together!

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I had no intention of watching this one, even though it was my two favorite teams playing. I've taken a bit of a brief hiatus with all of the Covid absences around the league.

But I watched the last 16 minutes or so. And... it was indeed a lot of fun. (And I watched it live!)

I think we saw a bit of lightning in a bottle. But that's what made it so damn entertaining. I wouldn't expect that level of effectiveness over the long haul from Monroe. But damn... that was a professional effort from him. Just show up and win an NBA game with smart play.

As for Nowell... he's on a nice run. I heard Finch after the game and he said there are a lot of factors that go into a guy playing or not playing ahead of another guy. It seemed to insinuate even off the court, or non-coaching reasons. Beasley is on the hook for $45M+ from the Wolves. Nowell for about $3.6M. Those add up to a lot of reasons.

Was kinda hoping we'd have seen a Joe Johnson vs. Greg Monroe meeting at some point.

Playoff (play-in) teams need to steal a few wins during a season. The Wolves just did that... very nice.


[Note: For what it's worth... Ime Udoka lit up the Celtics for their lack of discipline after the game. Called the defensive effort "embarrassing."]

As others said, it was one of the best games of the year from a fan perspective. What I love is how they locked down and just executed on both ends in the 4th quarter after being behind the majority of the game. It helped that Boston finally cooled off a bit from 3, but hard contests (include Knight's block of a corner 3 where he tumbled into the front seating section) helped too. Great win.

[DNatagal]

I know I have mentioned this before, but isn't it fun to see a team pass the ball and get easy layups and dunks off a movement based offense? It is hella more fun than watching bad passes and the 17 fakes that take up the entire shot clock from a highly paid star(s). I also was really liking the big lineup with Monroe, Knight, Jaden with Nowell and Layman. Each of those players knows how to screen and cut and it just brings a tear to my eye! Let's see if they can do it on back-to-back nights.

[Jester1534]

I know I have mentioned this before, but isn't it fun to see a team pass the ball and get easy layups and dunks off a movement based offense? It is hella more fun than watching bad passes and the 17 fakes that take up the entire shot clock from a highly paid star(s). I also was really liking the big lineup with Monroe, Knight, Jaden with Nowell and Layman. Each of those players knows how to screen and cut and it just brings a tear to my eye! Let's see if they can do it on back-to-back nights.

I said it during the game thread but Monroe was treat to watch set proper screens. It's part of reason why Nowell went off last night.

I love Kat but this board doesn't get on him enough for his half ass screens. It does matter and last night proofed it.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Before we get too starry-eyed about Greg Monroe... let's see how sustainable it is.

There are reasons why he was a non-factor in the NBA in recent years... and plateaued as a player prior to that.

Then again, we've seen so few moments of competent basketball over the years that it's easy to spot/celebrate when it happens.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Before we get too starry-eyed about Greg Monroe... let's see how sustainable it is.

There are reasons why he was a non-factor in the NBA in recent years... and plateaued as a player prior to that.

Then again, we've seen so few moments of competent basketball over the years that it's easy to spot/celebrate when it happens.

Were those reasons concerning Greg Monroe or the direction of the league? As usual, it's probably a combination of both.

Monroe typically struggled to defend in space and he's never been a traditional rim protector. He's also not much of a floor spacer outside of the occasional 18-footer. If you think about the last five years, bigs that couldn't contribute in at least one of those ways were getting phased out of the game completely.

Combine his weaknesses as a player with the league in general going with smaller, versatile, more athletic lineups and that left Monroe out to dry. I actually don't think Monroe's lost much on the offensive end or on the glass, but the league is getting away from small-ball a bit, which appears to have opened the door again for a guy like Moose. I hope he sticks around in Minnesota for at least this season.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Tend to agree that we shouldn't get too enamored by Monroe's performance, but it's not too surprising to see some quality bigs slip through the NBA cracks as rosters have downsized and gone more for versatility and athleticism. That's why it was so disappointing that Rosas couldn't deliver a legit backup C this past summer. It shouldn't have been that that hard to find someone or make a deal.

But I'll admit that I had completely forgotten about Monroe. We'll see how these next few games go with him.

[FNG]

I've always liked Greg Monroe. He seems like a very good guy, and he has been a consistent performer throughout his career...he's never had a season where he didn't average a double double per 36. Solid rebounder, elite passer, and a good post scorer. And a true blue collar guy who brings his lunch pail every night. So while I was lamenting my purchase of two tickets to tonight's game a few days ago, the addition of Monroe, return of PatBev and emergence of Jaylen Nowell have me fired up again.

All that said, it's difficult to expect Monroe to play as well as he did last night. When the NBA game transitioned more to a perimeter game, Monroe's defensive mediocrity became more apparent (I actually thought he was a decent defender early in his career, although he has never been a rim protector). He simply has never been capable of guarding the perimeter when forced to switch on to a shooter, and his teams have struggled with this. I only saw the 4th quarter of last night's game, so I don't know how he looked defensively the rest of the game. It seemed like the Celtics missed a lot of open looks in the 4th, but I don't know if the open looks were Greg's fault). Thibs is a savvy guy, so I expect him to force Monroe to switch a lot tonight to force him to chase shooters. I'll be interested to see how he looks. On offense, he needs guys like Jaden, Nowell and JO to be cutting to the basket to bring out his passing games. I'm looking forward to tonight.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Whether it was a fluke or something legit... we'll find out.

But it's still very cool for a guy to come out of nowhere after a 2.5 years absence and show up 3 hours prior to the game... and be that critical in an NBA victory.

Great story.