Game Report - Wolves v. Thunder

[Crazysauce]

Looks like it did. But crazy how Butler literally hand his hands all over this game.

[Lipoli390]

I'll add my game thoughts after finishing the game a while ago and posting in the game thread.

Roberson was matched up on Teague a lot early on. I'm telling you he cannot guard Teague off the dribble in space. I saw it in games and highlights doing some research on him and tonight he blew past him again. I'm actually surprised they didn't take advantage of that matchup more. Teague seemed more comfortable and they seemed to give him the ball more to do his thing making plays and being the PG. jimmy has been trying to be the good guy making plays and that's good but he needs to be in attack mode more and also let Teague start the offense.

Dieng is struggling but I think the last 2 games he has found himself a bit. I don't think either Dieng or Taj have found their groove yet and when they do it's gonna make this team pretty good even when one of them doesn't have a good game.

Belly is a flamethrower from 3 right now. He is shooting like a guard out there from deep. What is really significant is that he is able to hit shots at the top of the key it's not like he is just a corner threat.

Bazz looks lost. He is even worse than last year but he struggled mostly for like 20 games and then proceeded to have a career year in many ways. His flawed game really shows up right now. Huestis made him look bad on one post up but Huestis is huge.

Tyus wasn't great but he was good enough as an individual player to keep things from getting out of control with that bench unit even though they struggled.

Wiggins 3 point shooting is a revelation. I hope we can keep that rolling it would change the whole narrative about him as a player. He needs to do more Q score stuff but he is on the right track this year. In this game he had a go tot he flor and get floor burn moment had 2 blocks (one on PG if I remember right) and 2 steals. That's doing some other stuff.

Overall just a good win AT HOME against a good team and it was a really fun game to watch. At one point in the 2nd half I said to myself "I'm just going to enjoy the rest of this game even if we don't win this one. It's been a heck of a game."

I agree that Dieng has looked a little better the past two games. He's still not playing nearly as well as last season. The reason seems obvious to me. He's struggling to adjust to his new role coming of the bench. I think he should start. He was statistically our best defender by far last season and he had great chemistry on both ends with KAT. Gorgui will likely play substantially better as a starter while Gibson should play at least as well coming off the bench as he has been starting this season since he's been coming off the bench most of his career. That would be a net gain for both the starters and the second unit.

[Monster]

I'll add my game thoughts after finishing the game a while ago and posting in the game thread.

Roberson was matched up on Teague a lot early on. I'm telling you he cannot guard Teague off the dribble in space. I saw it in games and highlights doing some research on him and tonight he blew past him again. I'm actually surprised they didn't take advantage of that matchup more. Teague seemed more comfortable and they seemed to give him the ball more to do his thing making plays and being the PG. jimmy has been trying to be the good guy making plays and that's good but he needs to be in attack mode more and also let Teague start the offense.

Dieng is struggling but I think the last 2 games he has found himself a bit. I don't think either Dieng or Taj have found their groove yet and when they do it's gonna make this team pretty good even when one of them doesn't have a good game.

Belly is a flamethrower from 3 right now. He is shooting like a guard out there from deep. What is really significant is that he is able to hit shots at the top of the key it's not like he is just a corner threat.

Bazz looks lost. He is even worse than last year but he struggled mostly for like 20 games and then proceeded to have a career year in many ways. His flawed game really shows up right now. Huestis made him look bad on one post up but Huestis is huge.

Tyus wasn't great but he was good enough as an individual player to keep things from getting out of control with that bench unit even though they struggled.

Wiggins 3 point shooting is a revelation. I hope we can keep that rolling it would change the whole narrative about him as a player. He needs to do more Q score stuff but he is on the right track this year. In this game he had a go tot he flor and get floor burn moment had 2 blocks (one on PG if I remember right) and 2 steals. That's doing some other stuff.

Overall just a good win AT HOME against a good team and it was a really fun game to watch. At one point in the 2nd half I said to myself "I'm just going to enjoy the rest of this game even if we don't win this one. It's been a heck of a game."

I agree that Dieng has looked a little better the past two games. He's still not playing nearly as well as last season. The reason seems obvious to me. He's struggling to adjust to his new role coming of the bench. I think he should start. He was statistically our best defender by far last season and he had great chemistry on both ends it's KAT. Gorgui will likely play substantially better as a starter while should play at least as well as he has been this season since he's been coming off the bench most of his career. That would be a net gain for both the starters and the second unit.

Just because Dieng has struggled in his new role doesn't mean he won't succeed there. Remember he actually struggled early on the last 2 years before coming on and playing much better.

Strangely Jerry Zgoda made a smart prediction on his podcast with Rand that Taj would start this year over Dieng and his reasoning made a lot of sense. He said having Dieng start would mean they would not have a center coming off the bench instead they would have 2 guys that were more capable at PF in Taj and Belly (Zgoda was saying he was optimistic that Belly would be healthy relatively soon). He said a number of smart basketball people have said Dieng would be terrific as the backup center/first big off the bench and he thought having him as the backup to Towns just made a lot of sense. I may not be doing his rationale justice it was one of his best basketball takes and analysis of all time! Lol

Another thing to consider. Thibs seems to like to have pretty set rotations at least to begin the game. He seems open to going with something different as the game unfolds but he seems to like to start and keep things as much the same as possible. Whether you agree with that approach it seems to be what he likes to do so we will go with that framework. So look at the first 6 games who the Wolves would have faced with Dieng or Taj as the starters.

Spurs Gasol or Aldridge I mentioned how I would have liked to see Dieng on Aldridge more in that game. Dieng would be fine starting there

Utah Favors That would be fine

OKC Melo Taj was pretty good the first game defending Melo. Dieng...yikes

Detroit Tobias Harris. He burned everyone guarding him in that game but putting Dieng on him doesn't make sense.

Pacers Young either would probably be fine

OKC Taj wasn't as good and Dieng did better when he was on Melo but I'd pick Taj.

So half of the games for the Wolves so far favor Taj as a more mobile defender compared to Dieng. You could argue moving guys in and out of the lineup but Thibs doesn't seem to like to do that unless something really forces him to do so. I'm not sure it will be that favorable for Taj vs Dieng the whole year for matchups though (doubt it without looking at each team etc) but teams are going smaller and Dieng as a center has some good mobility and if he and his teammates get on the same page on that 2nd unit his abilities offensively and having size to rebound and contest shots will have plenty of value. In reality he and Taj's games have a lot of similarities in their strengths espcially since Taj may actually be able to shoot and even make a corner 3.