SAS v MIN iii

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thedoper
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Re: SAS v MIN iii

Post by thedoper »

AbeVigodaLive wrote:I've hated watching Jaylen Nowell play this season.

I'm sure some of it is a directive to be a scorer off the bench. But all-too-often, it just looks like a guy in a contract year trying to get buckets.

He's easily leading the team with 23+ shots per 36 minutes, and it actually seems low compared to how he seems to be shot-hunting out there.


I think he was the worst player out there last night. It was particularly bad.
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Coolbreeze44
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Re: SAS v MIN iii

Post by Coolbreeze44 »

AbeVigodaLive wrote:I've hated watching Jaylen Nowell play this season.

I'm sure some of it is a directive to be a scorer off the bench. But all-too-often, it just looks like a guy in a contract year trying to get buckets.

He's easily leading the team with 23+ shots per 36 minutes, and it actually seems low compared to how he seems to be shot-hunting out there.

I agree with this, and will add I don't find Ant a very appealing watch either. Yeah he's talented and we need him badly, but too much one on one.
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D-Mac [enjin:19736340]
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Re: SAS v MIN iii

Post by D-Mac [enjin:19736340] »

AbeVigodaLive wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
FNG wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
kekgeek1 wrote:4-29 from 3. There you go that is why they lost


It's a facsimile of last season. We had multiple guys cold from outside and sputtered our way to a 4-9 start. We were ranked in the bottom 10 in 3pt % through the month of November last season. From that point forward, we started getting hot and ended the season as an above average 3-pt shooting team.



Q, I watched last night's game from start to finish, and it was astonishing to me how many open looks the Spurs had compared to the Wolves. My god, how do you leave Doug McDermott open over and over again???? With our laughably bad perimeter defense and lack of ball movement, nobody should be surprised at the gap in 3-point percentage. NBA players (other than those on the Thunder and the Lakers) are going to make open 3's...just watch any team in the league at halftime or pre-game. Winning teams in the NBA move the ball and create open looks on offense, and rotate on defense to prevent open looks. Right now the Wolves do neither with regularity, and that's why we are only 4-3 despite being at least 6 point favorites in every game so far this season. We won 4 games not because of good play, but because of three reasons: superior interior defense, occasional terrific one-on-one scoring, and 3 wins against competition that can't make a 3-point shot (LA and OkC). But this formula is not going to work once our schedule gets more challenging.

Normally I would put last night's poor performance on the coach...Pop would never have allowed such poor defense and ball movement. But I think Finchie's hands are tied as long as JMac is out injured. DLo is what he is...a talented player who's never going to understand proper rotation on defense or the beauty of ball movement. Finchie tried to turn to Rivers, but he isn't and never has been a PG. Some here have called for Ant or Nowell to run the point, but frankly they are as bad as DLo at moving the ball. So who does Finchie turn to...there just isn't a healthy PG on our roster that does what he wants for this team. JMAc has two distinct injuries right now keeping him on the bench. If he doesn't return soon, a 50+ win season is a pipe dream.


We are #6 in defensive rating and #23 in offensive rating. There are strengths and weaknesses within our defense and offense that you point out above, but the bottom line is we've been very good defensively, very bad offensively. That is exactly how we started last season.

Does that mean it will automatically course correct and we have nothing to worry about? Not at all. I'm just not going hit the panic button yet.



I'd take the defensive rating with a grain of salt.

The Timberwolves are playing some of the least talented teams in the league... and those teams have been without their best player(s) in several of those games.

The easy schedule is the only thing keeping a disjointed start from looking worse in the standings.



[Note: The one good thing is that this is a really weird year. Several "good" teams are struggling and the bottom-feeders have taken advantage.]


Exactly. Get your #6 defensive rating crap out of here. Seriously
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Q-is-here
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Re: SAS v MIN iii

Post by Q-is-here »

D-Mac wrote:
AbeVigodaLive wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
FNG wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
kekgeek1 wrote:4-29 from 3. There you go that is why they lost


It's a facsimile of last season. We had multiple guys cold from outside and sputtered our way to a 4-9 start. We were ranked in the bottom 10 in 3pt % through the month of November last season. From that point forward, we started getting hot and ended the season as an above average 3-pt shooting team.



Q, I watched last night's game from start to finish, and it was astonishing to me how many open looks the Spurs had compared to the Wolves. My god, how do you leave Doug McDermott open over and over again???? With our laughably bad perimeter defense and lack of ball movement, nobody should be surprised at the gap in 3-point percentage. NBA players (other than those on the Thunder and the Lakers) are going to make open 3's...just watch any team in the league at halftime or pre-game. Winning teams in the NBA move the ball and create open looks on offense, and rotate on defense to prevent open looks. Right now the Wolves do neither with regularity, and that's why we are only 4-3 despite being at least 6 point favorites in every game so far this season. We won 4 games not because of good play, but because of three reasons: superior interior defense, occasional terrific one-on-one scoring, and 3 wins against competition that can't make a 3-point shot (LA and OkC). But this formula is not going to work once our schedule gets more challenging.

Normally I would put last night's poor performance on the coach...Pop would never have allowed such poor defense and ball movement. But I think Finchie's hands are tied as long as JMac is out injured. DLo is what he is...a talented player who's never going to understand proper rotation on defense or the beauty of ball movement. Finchie tried to turn to Rivers, but he isn't and never has been a PG. Some here have called for Ant or Nowell to run the point, but frankly they are as bad as DLo at moving the ball. So who does Finchie turn to...there just isn't a healthy PG on our roster that does what he wants for this team. JMAc has two distinct injuries right now keeping him on the bench. If he doesn't return soon, a 50+ win season is a pipe dream.


We are #6 in defensive rating and #23 in offensive rating. There are strengths and weaknesses within our defense and offense that you point out above, but the bottom line is we've been very good defensively, very bad offensively. That is exactly how we started last season.

Does that mean it will automatically course correct and we have nothing to worry about? Not at all. I'm just not going hit the panic button yet.



I'd take the defensive rating with a grain of salt.

The Timberwolves are playing some of the least talented teams in the league... and those teams have been without their best player(s) in several of those games.

The easy schedule is the only thing keeping a disjointed start from looking worse in the standings.



[Note: The one good thing is that this is a really weird year. Several "good" teams are struggling and the bottom-feeders have taken advantage.]


Exactly. Get your #6 defensive rating crap out of here. Seriously


I'm just stating the facts. We are #6 ranked in defense, #23 in offense. Of course you can contextualize those facts however you'd like, but it doesn't magically make them go away.

While you seem to be reveling in how mediocre the Wolves look, I'm going to remain patient for now. Perhaps my hair will be on fire in another 15 or 30 games from now.
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FNG
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Re: SAS v MIN iii

Post by FNG »

D-Mac wrote:
AbeVigodaLive wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
FNG wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
kekgeek1 wrote:4-29 from 3. There you go that is why they lost


It's a facsimile of last season. We had multiple guys cold from outside and sputtered our way to a 4-9 start. We were ranked in the bottom 10 in 3pt % through the month of November last season. From that point forward, we started getting hot and ended the season as an above average 3-pt shooting team.



Q, I watched last night's game from start to finish, and it was astonishing to me how many open looks the Spurs had compared to the Wolves. My god, how do you leave Doug McDermott open over and over again???? With our laughably bad perimeter defense and lack of ball movement, nobody should be surprised at the gap in 3-point percentage. NBA players (other than those on the Thunder and the Lakers) are going to make open 3's...just watch any team in the league at halftime or pre-game. Winning teams in the NBA move the ball and create open looks on offense, and rotate on defense to prevent open looks. Right now the Wolves do neither with regularity, and that's why we are only 4-3 despite being at least 6 point favorites in every game so far this season. We won 4 games not because of good play, but because of three reasons: superior interior defense, occasional terrific one-on-one scoring, and 3 wins against competition that can't make a 3-point shot (LA and OkC). But this formula is not going to work once our schedule gets more challenging.

Normally I would put last night's poor performance on the coach...Pop would never have allowed such poor defense and ball movement. But I think Finchie's hands are tied as long as JMac is out injured. DLo is what he is...a talented player who's never going to understand proper rotation on defense or the beauty of ball movement. Finchie tried to turn to Rivers, but he isn't and never has been a PG. Some here have called for Ant or Nowell to run the point, but frankly they are as bad as DLo at moving the ball. So who does Finchie turn to...there just isn't a healthy PG on our roster that does what he wants for this team. JMAc has two distinct injuries right now keeping him on the bench. If he doesn't return soon, a 50+ win season is a pipe dream.


We are #6 in defensive rating and #23 in offensive rating. There are strengths and weaknesses within our defense and offense that you point out above, but the bottom line is we've been very good defensively, very bad offensively. That is exactly how we started last season.

Does that mean it will automatically course correct and we have nothing to worry about? Not at all. I'm just not going hit the panic button yet.



I'd take the defensive rating with a grain of salt.

The Timberwolves are playing some of the least talented teams in the league... and those teams have been without their best player(s) in several of those games.

The easy schedule is the only thing keeping a disjointed start from looking worse in the standings.



[Note: The one good thing is that this is a really weird year. Several "good" teams are struggling and the bottom-feeders have taken advantage.]


Exactly. Get your #6 defensive rating crap out of here. Seriously


D- actually the #6 rating is even more impressive when you look at who we have played, because they are mostly teams who rank high so far this year on offense. We have played 3 games against the Spurs, and they currently rank 7th in PPG. And Utah is currently 11th. The only bad offensive team we have played this year is OkC, and even they don't rank that bad at 21st.
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D-Mac [enjin:19736340]
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Re: SAS v MIN iii

Post by D-Mac [enjin:19736340] »

Q-was-here wrote:
D-Mac wrote:
AbeVigodaLive wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
FNG wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
kekgeek1 wrote:4-29 from 3. There you go that is why they lost


It's a facsimile of last season. We had multiple guys cold from outside and sputtered our way to a 4-9 start. We were ranked in the bottom 10 in 3pt % through the month of November last season. From that point forward, we started getting hot and ended the season as an above average 3-pt shooting team.[/quote


Q, I watched last night's game from start to finish, and it was astonishing to me how many open looks the Spurs had compared to the Wolves. My god, how do you leave Doug McDermott open over and over again???? With our laughably bad perimeter defense and lack of ball movement, nobody should be surprised at the gap in 3-point percentage. NBA players (other than those on the Thunder and the Lakers) are going to make open 3's...just watch any team in the league at halftime or pre-game. Winning teams in the NBA move the ball and create open looks on offense, and rotate on defense to prevent open looks. Right now the Wolves do neither with regularity, and that's why we are only 4-3 despite being at least 6 point favorites in every game so far this season. We won 4 games not because of good play, but because of three reasons: superior interior defense, occasional terrific one-on-one scoring, and 3 wins against competition that can't make a 3-point shot (LA and OkC). But this formula is not going to work once our schedule gets more challenging.

Normally I would put last night's poor performance on the coach...Pop would never have allowed such poor defense and ball movement. But I think Finchie's hands are tied as long as JMac is out injured. DLo is what he is...a talented player who's never going to understand proper rotation on defense or the beauty of ball movement. Finchie tried to turn to Rivers, but he isn't and never has been a PG. Some here have called for Ant or Nowell to run the point, but frankly they are as bad as DLo at moving the ball. So who does Finchie turn to...there just isn't a healthy PG on our roster that does what he wants for this team. JMAc has two distinct injuries right now keeping him on the bench. If he doesn't return soon, a 50+ win season is a pipe dream.


We are #6 in defensive rating and #23 in offensive rating. There are strengths and weaknesses within our defense and offense that you point out above, but the bottom line is we've been very good defensively, very bad offensively. That is exactly how we started last season.

Does that mean it will automatically course correct and we have nothing to worry about? Not at all. I'm just not going hit the panic button yet.



I'd take the defensive rating with a grain of salt.

The Timberwolves are playing some of the least talented teams in the league... and those teams have been without their best player(s) in several of those games.

The easy schedule is the only thing keeping a disjointed start from looking worse in the standings.



[Note: The one good thing is that this is a really weird year. Several "good" teams are struggling and the bottom-feeders have taken advantage.]


Exactly. Get your #6 defensive rating crap out of here. Seriously


I'm just stating the facts. We are #6 ranked in defense, #23 in offense. Of course you can contextualize those facts however you'd like, but it doesn't magically make them go away.

While you seem to be reveling in how mediocre the Wolves look, I'm going to remain patient for now. Perhaps my hair will be on fire in another 15 or 30 games from now.


Yeah I know. You're not wrong about it being facts. I'd much prefer that the wolves looked great so far and me stupid (I probably wouldn't be posting as much), but I'll admit that I don't mind being right as a very small consolation too (not a great quality I suppose, but at least I'm honest about it).

I can't fault people for choosing to be optimistic about Dlo or the deal we did for Gobert (I'm not questioning the quality of Gobert himself as a player), but I just didn't like either move myself. I feel like the issue we addressed could have been fixed way easier and then we'd have assets to fix the real problem(s). I'm still watching every game and I hope we start playing better, but if we don't, I hope that TC gets ripped. This isn't Finchies fault. Finch isn't the one who kept Dlo and he didn't make the Gobert trade. He's trying to make it work, but whatever happens to this team isn't on him IMO
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Q-is-here
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Re: SAS v MIN iii

Post by Q-is-here »

D-Mac wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
D-Mac wrote:
AbeVigodaLive wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
FNG wrote:
Q-was-here wrote:
kekgeek1 wrote:4-29 from 3. There you go that is why they lost


It's a facsimile of last season. We had multiple guys cold from outside and sputtered our way to a 4-9 start. We were ranked in the bottom 10 in 3pt % through the month of November last season. From that point forward, we started getting hot and ended the season as an above average 3-pt shooting team.[/quote


Q, I watched last night's game from start to finish, and it was astonishing to me how many open looks the Spurs had compared to the Wolves. My god, how do you leave Doug McDermott open over and over again???? With our laughably bad perimeter defense and lack of ball movement, nobody should be surprised at the gap in 3-point percentage. NBA players (other than those on the Thunder and the Lakers) are going to make open 3's...just watch any team in the league at halftime or pre-game. Winning teams in the NBA move the ball and create open looks on offense, and rotate on defense to prevent open looks. Right now the Wolves do neither with regularity, and that's why we are only 4-3 despite being at least 6 point favorites in every game so far this season. We won 4 games not because of good play, but because of three reasons: superior interior defense, occasional terrific one-on-one scoring, and 3 wins against competition that can't make a 3-point shot (LA and OkC). But this formula is not going to work once our schedule gets more challenging.

Normally I would put last night's poor performance on the coach...Pop would never have allowed such poor defense and ball movement. But I think Finchie's hands are tied as long as JMac is out injured. DLo is what he is...a talented player who's never going to understand proper rotation on defense or the beauty of ball movement. Finchie tried to turn to Rivers, but he isn't and never has been a PG. Some here have called for Ant or Nowell to run the point, but frankly they are as bad as DLo at moving the ball. So who does Finchie turn to...there just isn't a healthy PG on our roster that does what he wants for this team. JMAc has two distinct injuries right now keeping him on the bench. If he doesn't return soon, a 50+ win season is a pipe dream.


We are #6 in defensive rating and #23 in offensive rating. There are strengths and weaknesses within our defense and offense that you point out above, but the bottom line is we've been very good defensively, very bad offensively. That is exactly how we started last season.

Does that mean it will automatically course correct and we have nothing to worry about? Not at all. I'm just not going hit the panic button yet.



I'd take the defensive rating with a grain of salt.

The Timberwolves are playing some of the least talented teams in the league... and those teams have been without their best player(s) in several of those games.

The easy schedule is the only thing keeping a disjointed start from looking worse in the standings.



[Note: The one good thing is that this is a really weird year. Several "good" teams are struggling and the bottom-feeders have taken advantage.]


Exactly. Get your #6 defensive rating crap out of here. Seriously


I'm just stating the facts. We are #6 ranked in defense, #23 in offense. Of course you can contextualize those facts however you'd like, but it doesn't magically make them go away.

While you seem to be reveling in how mediocre the Wolves look, I'm going to remain patient for now. Perhaps my hair will be on fire in another 15 or 30 games from now.


Yeah I know. You're not wrong about it being facts. I'd much prefer that the wolves looked great so far and me stupid (I probably wouldn't be posting as much), but I'll admit that I don't mind being right as a very small consolation too (not a great quality I suppose, but at least I'm honest about it).

I can't fault people for choosing to be optimistic about Dlo or the deal we did for Gobert (I'm not questioning the quality of Gobert himself as a player), but I just didn't like either move myself. I feel like the issue we addressed could have been fixed way easier and then we'd have assets to fix the real problem(s). I'm still watching every game and I hope we start playing better, but if we don't, I hope that TC gets ripped. This isn't Finchies fault. Finch isn't the one who kept Dlo and he didn't make the Gobert trade. He's trying to make it work, but whatever happens to this team isn't on him IMO


Well, your muse is on an expiring deal so you may have to change your handle after this season. You do realize that the Wolves essentially have KAT, Gobert, and soon to be Ant locked up for at least the next three seasons after this one, right? So if DLO is indeed the root cause behind our struggles, he'll be gone after this season and we still have a "big three" in place.
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