Wolves/Rockets ... thread concerns

[BloopOracle]

Vanderbilt is getting quite a bit of love on social media from non-wolves fans, great to see

[Q-is-here]

Every win is a great win for this franchise - I never take things for granted with this team!

- We won with relative ease, but man, we played some sloppy defense in the 4th quarter. That was some undisciplined, ugly ball. We didn't get stops and then had to get KAT back out there instead of resting him for all of the 4th.

- If you are going to play a chaotic, undisciplined style like Houston did, Vando is just going to feast on all of the mistakes and poor fundamentals. What a game....

- The thing some folks don't realize is that this is not what Vando envisioned for himself when he was a blue chip prospect in high school. He was going to be the next great point forward. When that didn't work out starting at Kentucky, he began to remake himself into an elite energy and defensive player. Now we're starting to get glimpses of his more advanced skills as well. Kudos to him for doing whatever it takes to get himself into an NBA rotation.

- Nowell continues to play an impressive all around game in limited minutes. He again was super efficient and made a few eye-opening passes as well. He went 11/5/5 in only 18 minutes and was a +11. He keeps piling up evidence that he is becoming a plus-level NBA player.

- I noticed this in the G-league about Nowell and now I'm seeing it at this level....Poise. The guy rarely makes a poor decision on offense. It's a bit underrated, but he's got a great feel for making the right play and not trying to do too much. Really impressed.

- I thought Naz, McDaniels, and Prince were mediocre to terrible in this game. Is Prince not allowed to have two good games in a row?

- KAT and DLO led the way. That's how it should be and let's hope they keep it up. DLO's shot falling is absolutely huge for this offense.

Go Wolves!

[Monster]

Every win is a great win for this franchise - I never take things for granted with this team!

- We won with relative ease, but man, we played some sloppy defense in the 4th quarter. That was some undisciplined, ugly ball. We didn't get stops and then had to get KAT back out there instead of resting him for all of the 4th.

- If you are going to play a chaotic, undisciplined style like Houston did, Vando is just going to feast on all of the mistakes and poor fundamentals. What a game....

- The thing some folks don't realize is that this is not what Vando envisioned for himself when he was a blue chip prospect in high school. He was going to be the next great point forward. When that didn't work out starting at Kentucky, he began to remake himself into an elite energy and defensive player. Now we're starting to get glimpses of his more advanced skills as well. Kudos to him for doing whatever it takes to get himself into an NBA rotation.

- Nowell continues to play an impressive all around game in limited minutes. He again was super efficient and made a few eye-opening passes as well. He went 11/5/5 in only 18 minutes and was a +11. He keeps piling up evidence that he is becoming a plus-level NBA player.

- I noticed this in the G-league about Nowell and now I'm seeing it at this level....Poise. The guy rarely makes a poor decision on offense. It's a bit underrated, but he's got a great feel for making the right play and not trying to do too much. Really impressed.

- I thought Naz, McDaniels, and Prince were mediocre to terrible in this game. Is Prince not allowed to have two good games in a row?

- KAT and DLO led the way. That's how it should be and let's hope they keep it up. DLO's shot falling is absolutely huge for this offense.

Go Wolves!

I watched some extended highlights of this one. That also let me to watch some highlights of recent Nowell games. I hope he continues to get chances to play based on the stats I see from other guys. I'll add that that breakaway dunk he had with the Rocket player going up behind him was pretty nice. I think people forget that Nowell is pretty athletic. I agree with your take Q on Nowell's poise feel etc. He plays like he knows what he is doing and he has some tricks in his bag that he can pull out too. I really hope that he can keep making shots.

20-20 sounds good really right now even if it is going into a tough stretch.

[Lipoli390]

Every win is a great win for this franchise - I never take things for granted with this team!

- We won with relative ease, but man, we played some sloppy defense in the 4th quarter. That was some undisciplined, ugly ball. We didn't get stops and then had to get KAT back out there instead of resting him for all of the 4th.

- If you are going to play a chaotic, undisciplined style like Houston did, Vando is just going to feast on all of the mistakes and poor fundamentals. What a game....

- The thing some folks don't realize is that this is not what Vando envisioned for himself when he was a blue chip prospect in high school. He was going to be the next great point forward. When that didn't work out starting at Kentucky, he began to remake himself into an elite energy and defensive player. Now we're starting to get glimpses of his more advanced skills as well. Kudos to him for doing whatever it takes to get himself into an NBA rotation.

- Nowell continues to play an impressive all around game in limited minutes. He again was super efficient and made a few eye-opening passes as well. He went 11/5/5 in only 18 minutes and was a +11. He keeps piling up evidence that he is becoming a plus-level NBA player.

- I noticed this in the G-league about Nowell and now I'm seeing it at this level....Poise. The guy rarely makes a poor decision on offense. It's a bit underrated, but he's got a great feel for making the right play and not trying to do too much. Really impressed.

- I thought Naz, McDaniels, and Prince were mediocre to terrible in this game. Is Prince not allowed to have two good games in a row?

- KAT and DLO led the way. That's how it should be and let's hope they keep it up. DLO's shot falling is absolutely huge for this offense.

Go Wolves!

Q - I'm not sure it went quite like that for Vando. He arrived at Kentucky as a player touted for his skills and upside, but he also arrived with a great motor. I don't think he remade himself at Kentucky. He just didn't have enough to playing time at Kentucky with his injuries to develop and show his skills. The draft analyses on Vando coming out of Kentucky lauded both his motor and his skills/talent. His skill with the ball has been apparent to me since he first arrived in Minnesota. He can take the ball down the court and has nice passing skills off the dribble. I'm not surprised to see his game expand to reflect his skill set now that he's had an extended period of physical health. The big question for me is whether he'll expand his shooting range. But short of that, he's been tremendous for us this season. I'd say that he and Beverley are the two most important players on this team other than our core three of KAT, DLO and Edwards. I didn't think that before the season started, but that's the way I see it now.

[BloopOracle]

A shocking statistic I found on twitter, Jared Vanderbilt has only played 21 more games than Anthony Edwards

[Q-is-here]

Every win is a great win for this franchise - I never take things for granted with this team!

- We won with relative ease, but man, we played some sloppy defense in the 4th quarter. That was some undisciplined, ugly ball. We didn't get stops and then had to get KAT back out there instead of resting him for all of the 4th.

- If you are going to play a chaotic, undisciplined style like Houston did, Vando is just going to feast on all of the mistakes and poor fundamentals. What a game....

- The thing some folks don't realize is that this is not what Vando envisioned for himself when he was a blue chip prospect in high school. He was going to be the next great point forward. When that didn't work out starting at Kentucky, he began to remake himself into an elite energy and defensive player. Now we're starting to get glimpses of his more advanced skills as well. Kudos to him for doing whatever it takes to get himself into an NBA rotation.

- Nowell continues to play an impressive all around game in limited minutes. He again was super efficient and made a few eye-opening passes as well. He went 11/5/5 in only 18 minutes and was a +11. He keeps piling up evidence that he is becoming a plus-level NBA player.

- I noticed this in the G-league about Nowell and now I'm seeing it at this level....Poise. The guy rarely makes a poor decision on offense. It's a bit underrated, but he's got a great feel for making the right play and not trying to do too much. Really impressed.

- I thought Naz, McDaniels, and Prince were mediocre to terrible in this game. Is Prince not allowed to have two good games in a row?

- KAT and DLO led the way. That's how it should be and let's hope they keep it up. DLO's shot falling is absolutely huge for this offense.

Go Wolves!

Q - I'm not sure it went quite like that for Vando. He arrived at Kentucky as a player touted for his skills and upside, but he also arrived with a great motor. I don't think he remade himself at Kentucky. He just didn't have enough to playing time at Kentucky with his injuries to develop and show his skills. The draft analyses on Vando coming out of Kentucky lauded both his motor and his skills/talent. His skill with the ball has been apparent to me since he first arrived in Minnesota. He can take the ball down the court and has nice passing skills off the dribble. I'm not surprised to see his game expand to reflect his skill set now that he's had an extended period of physical health. The big question for me is whether he'll expand his shooting range. But short of that, he's been tremendous for us this season. I'd say that he and Beverley are the two most important players on this team other than our core three of KAT, DLO and Edwards. I didn't think that before the season started, but that's the way I see it now.

That's a fair point about him always having a high motor Lip. However, I don't think he fashioned himself as a defensive hustle guy at first. In fact, when I was first watching him on our G-League team, he was trying to be that jack-of-all trades point forward type of player. The result was he averaged 16 pts, 3.6 assists, and......4 turnovers per game. He was even taking a couple of 3's per game. The bottom line is he was too offensively limited to be trusted with the ball in his hands.

So I give him a ton of credit for accepting his lot in the life as an NBA player and figuring out that all-out hustle, rebounding, and defense is what would buy him playing time. And with three high-usage guys playing next to him, he's nearly the perfect fit! If he ever developed a semi-reliable 3-ball, that would make him a unicorn next to KAT.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Beat bad teams.

That's what playoff teams do. This is getting fun.

[FNG]

I've probably watched more Wolves basketball this season than I have in a long time (mostly next morning DVR style) with their rejuvenated defense, but I'm taking a rare morning off because...well, you know...Houston. They are now 3-26 when Jalen Green plays! But still, as Abe and Q say above, any win is a good thing...even against a bad team. And the last two games have been enormously impressive from an offensive standpoint (we obviously miss PatBev greatly on defense). Our Big Two have put up exceptional back-to-back games, and Vando has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Now as we face a 10-game stretch that would make any team gulp, we're going to need our Big Two to continue to play at a very high level, Ant to show up every night, and PatBev to return. But even if we play like we have in the past three games, this will be a tough stretch. We may be favored in Atlanta and tomorrow night in NO, but even those games will not be pushovers. I think we have found out in the past three games that we are a pretty good team when relatively healthy, and my opinion of that won't change even if we go on a run like we did back in November when we lost 8 of 9 and doom and gloom set in here in this forum. The Wolves will experience scheduling whiplash here with this 10-game stretch following some very easy wins. The Tom Kelly "never too high, never too low" mantra is what I'm going to follow for the rest of the month.

[kekgeek]

I think the thing with Vando he massively improved his FT shooting. He has always been balls to the walls but now it is controlled . Still wondering what it looks like in the Playoffs because teams like the Jazz have put their C on Vando and he has struggled. If he ever develops a corner 3 pt shot the Wolves have a 20 mil a year player on their hands

[Monster]

A shocking statistic I found on twitter, Jared Vanderbilt has only played 21 more games than Anthony Edwards

Last year was basically the first year Vanderbilt actually played in a significant NBA games. He only played a total of 24 G-league games over the course of a few seasons. He only played 14 college games and it was just 17 mpg. Hopefully He can stay healthy.