It's almost like coaching matters. Last season the Wolves had a guy in Ryan Saunders that would struggle to be qualified to coach the women's junior varsity team at your local high school. This season we have a well-renowned guy who made the list of best offensive minds in the league in a pre-season poll before he's even coached an entire year of basketball. And the difference between the two in leadership and command of the roster couldn't be any bigger. Chris Finch is the real deal.
FNG's late night DVR review (I hope this bit has been claimed yet).
I'm not going to play the "Well, it was only the Rockets" card. Leading a team by 30 before garbage time has to be meaningful. This was a great start to the season!
I read through this thread as I was watching the replay, and Q nailed it...while so many guys played well, the defensive energy by Okogie and McDaniels was extraordinary and set the table for an impressive win. They seemed to be in the middle of every offensive set the Rockets tried...so disruptive tonight. Towns and Edwards were spectacular on offense and on the boards, but despite only scoring 10 points between them, I give the game balls to Josh and Jaden. And to Finch for starting Josh and setting up exactly the right matchups. Josh won't always be the right guy to start, but he was tonight.
I've been making fun of Wide Load Beasley all preseason, but I have to admit he looked good tonight. Still a knucklehead on defense sometimes, but his effort was noticeable tonight at both ends of the court. We need him to be a productive 5th man if we intend to challenge for a playoff spot.
Ok, I lied when I said I wasn't going to dismiss Houston... they are a remarkably undisciplined team. I'm not on the Green or Porter Jr. bandwagon at all. They're exactly the kind of players defensive players like Okogie, Vando, and Jaden are going to feast on, and they certainly did tonight.
DLo was my one disappointment tonight- I need to see much more from him. The defensive promise I thought I saw in the preseason wasn't on display tonight, and the offense seemed more fluid when J-Mac was running the point. His 3 consecutive 3-point makes showed how talented he is, but kind of reminded me of when Miguel Sano hits a 450 foot 3-run homer in a game in which the outcome isn't in doubt. It's not surprising to me in the least that J-Mac was a +20 in only 19 minutes, while DLo was far behind the other 4 starters at +9. He simply needs to be better for us to go anywhere.
But all in all, a terrific opener. With PatBev returning against a Zion-less New Orleans team, 2-0 should be on the horizon.
Plus-minus is a terrible statistic by itself and I can't believe that anyone could watch this game and come away thinking that any one player was disappointing. They all performed tonight. They won the game in dominating fashion in the first half and essentially coasted through the finish line in a way that good teams normally do against bad teams.
jester1534 wrote:Well I'm hoping that I don't have huge let down here.
I was on fire in Vegas during football and hit three 3 team parlays.
So I took the grand I was up and double down on the wolves -6 1/2 tonight.
Hopefully i can fly home happy tomorrow
Aged like brie.
Congrats on the easy cash tonight Jester. I had the under 231. I got very nervous when the Rockets karate chopped Bolmaro when they were running out the clock. Just won by a point.
Camden0916 wrote:It's almost like coaching matters. Last season the Wolves had a guy in Ryan Saunders that would struggle to be qualified to coach the women's junior varsity team at your local high school. This season we have a well-renowned guy who made the list of best offensive minds in the league in a pre-season poll before he's even coached an entire year of basketball. And the difference between the two in leadership and command of the roster couldn't be any bigger. Chris Finch is the real deal.
I think the big thing with Finch is he is not a dick like thibs (obviously we both have defended Thibs over the years), he is not a push over like Saunders. He seems like a damn good mix of great basketball mind plus the respect of the players to allow him to keep them in check when need be
Camden0916 wrote:Plus-minus is a terrible statistic by itself and I can't believe that anyone could watch this game and come away thinking that any one player was disappointing. They all performed tonight. They won the game in dominating fashion in the first half and essentially coasted through the finish line in a way that good teams normally do against bad teams.
Hey if 22pts 7asts 3rebs. On 50% from 3, getting to the line 8 times 1 steal and 1 block and a +9 in everyone's favorite statistic is disappointing. I have to say the Wolves might win the title if that is a "disappointing" Dlo game
Camden wrote:Plus-minus is a terrible statistic by itself and I can't believe that anyone could watch this game and come away thinking that any one player was disappointing. They all performed tonight. They won the game in dominating fashion in the first half and essentially coasted through the finish line in a way that good teams normally do against bad teams.
It was a tremendous win, Cam, I agree. But that doesn't mean some players don't stand out positively and negatively...we need to be discerning as fans. I loved Dlo's 3 makes in a row beyond the arc...it's fun when he gets hot. But seriously, did you think the offense ran as efficiently when he was at the point compared to J-Mac? To me there was a huge difference, and I need my max salary starting PG to run the offense much better than his backup (or technically, our 3rd string PG I guess). And on a night when the other 4 starters were terrific on defense, DLo seemed to be the same old guy to me. Maybe you saw it differently, and that's fine, but I just didn't see enough from him tonight to get me as excited as I was in a couple of the preseason games. And we can make fun of the +/- stat all we want, but when a player has underperformed in this stat his entire career and is 11 points behind every other starter tonight, it seems like a relevant stat to talk about. Every night one starter is going to be our least impactful player, and to me tonight it was clearly DLo. I think we can beat teams like Houston and Zion-less New Orleans with DLo not playing like a max player, but we're going to need a lot more from him once we start playing tougher teams.
Me personally, Kat and Dlo's stat line doesn't mean much to me. Kat can get 20 and 10 in his sleep, been going that for 6 years on losing teams, same with Dlo, great he played iso ball for 6 possession and hit some 3's, great seen it before also. I'm more concerned and watching for growth in maturity and creating shots for other guys and making other better, something neither are particularly great at in my opinion.
Meh, I think when the team essentially wins by 30 with their three best players scoring 80-plus points it's a pretty resounding victory. Letting one singular (flawed) metric lead you to believe there was anything to be disappointed about in this game is petty to me and seems more like you're hunting for things to critique. It's whatever. You're entitled to your opinion as always. Feels like a weird take to have considering the actual game, though.
