GDT: Minnesota vs. Memphis

[BloopOracle]

Dave Benz probably got bullied a LOT in school.

Dave "Acthullly" Benz

[jake_elwood [enjin:6673175]]

Edwards only 6 points the last 3 quarters; cut him.

[DNatagal]

Nice to see the Wolves get used to the new ball and smother a team in defense. That was fun to watch.

[kekgeek]

Still trying to figure out how we got Pat Bev for Culver and Juancho

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Vando! Vando! Vando!

That guy is a tone-setter along with Pat Bev. Paid his dues mostly on the bench with Denver and in the G-League and now establishing himself as a vital part of this team.

[thedoper]

You're welcome for not watching the game again. Go Wolves.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

138-95, Wolves win!

Minnesota: 20-41 3P (48.8%)
Memphis: 9-32 3P (28.1%)

Minnesota: 50 rebounds
Memphis: 33 rebounds

Minnesota: 52 points in the paint
Memphis: 36 points in the paint

Minnesota: 23 fast break points
Memphis: 10 fast break points

Minnesota: 50 bench points
Memphis: 43 bench points

This was a dominant performance from the Wolves right out of the gate as they jumped to a 17-point lead in the first quarter and continued to extend it to 45 later in the game. Minnesota's "big three" played like a big three tonight. I thought Anthony Edwards was exceptional in the first quarter and then D'Angelo Russell and Karl-Anthony Towns ran away with it in the second and third. They were better than you could ask for, collectively. Malik Beasley and Taurean Prince are difference-makers when they're playing in rhythm. It's awesome they've turned it on as of late. Patrick Beverley and Jarred Vanderbilt continue to be the constants, though. They bring the same effort, competitiveness, grit, hustle, etc. every game and it's contagious. There's not enough superlatives to award those two as tone-setters. Their games are better than what the box score illustrates.

The Wolves are now 7-9 with sole possession of the 10-seed and heading to New Orleans for Monday's game. Let's keep it going. Minnesota's on a roll.

[Lipoli390]

16 games in and I think it's safe to say the new-look Wolves defense is for real. There are probably a number of reasons for the dramatic defensive improvement we've seen from this team thus far, including a better head coach, a new defensive coach known for hard-nosed on-ball defense and an overall recognition by players from last season, especially. Towns and DLO, that they had to improve a lot defensively to be relevant this season. But I think the biggest reason has been the addition of Beverley. When we traded for him this past summer, most of us referred to him as a culture changer and that's what he's proven to be. We already had two high-octane defenders in Vando and Okogie, but Vando wasn't a regular rotation guy until late last season and Okogie is too much of a handicap offensively to rely on as a significant rotation player. But Beverley is more than a high-octane defender; he's a high-IQ veteran tone-setter who excels on both sides of the ball and rubs off on his teammates. He was the perfect addition to this team at this time and he's especially valuable as an early influencer for the young Anthony Edwards. Meanwhile, Vanderbilt is the closest thing to Rodman I've ever seen except that he has ballhandling skills that Rodman never had.

So the Wolves are now 6-9 in sole possession of 10th place in the Conference. If the defense is as real and sustainable as it appears to be, the Wolves should be right in the thick of the hunt for one of the final two playoff spots in the West. I say that because the Wolves have achieved a 6-9 record with four rotation players -- Russell, Beasley, Beverley and Prince -- shooting well below their norms from behind the arc until the past few games. Beverley was the first to get his stroke back. Beasley has been back on track the past two games and Russell seemed back on track tonight against Memphis. Prince showed some signs of breaking out of his slump, but he's still not there yet. If those four players simply match their career 3-point shooting averages the rest of the season and Edwards continues to play the way he's been playing, the Wolves will put up points the way they did at the end of last season. Combine that with the Wolves new-found defensive prowess and this season should be a good one for the Wolves. And I still see McDaniels eventually getting it together to the point where he'll limit his fouling and find his shooting stroke.

Admittedly, this team still has problems and unknowns. Although the Wolves dominated the boards tonight, they're still undersized and likely to struggle on the boards in a lot of games. Related to the Wolves rebounding weakness, the team also lacks a physical presence inside to help Towns and the team generally against physical teams with size. And it remains to be seen whether the four aforementioned perimeter shooters will regain and sustain their expected three-point marksmanship. And there's Beverley's durability issues. Nevertheless, I'm certainly encouraged by the last three games. Now it's critically important for this team to go into New Orleans and come away with a win on Monday.

[FNG]

A perfect game by our Wolves...man, it must have fun to be in the house last night! I'm going to skip past the fact that we played a Griz team missing its two best wing defenders (and pretty good scorers) because I think we would have won by 20 even if Memphis had been 100% healthy.

It was lovely to get 20+ efficient points from our Big Three (Ant had 23 points on 10 shots :shock: ), but we had to expect a great offense with the Griz missing its best defenders, so this one was all about our terrific defense. I was a little worried early when KAT stepped out to double Ja, leaving Adams wide open for a layup. But then I realized that was Finch's defensive strategy, and it worked brilliantly. Let's stop Ja by double teaming him and stop JJJ but hounding him with Vando/Jaden, and don't worry about anyone else. Sure, Bane is a good shooter, but he's not a volume scorer and he's not going to beat you...even when he has DLo (who was terrific again off-ball, but not a good one-on-one defender) on him and produces a nice game like this one. The defensive strategy was brilliant and executed to perfection. The Griz announcers recognized it and were very complimentary.

But it all starts with PatBev. Yes, KAT's (and Naz's) doubling on Ja was helpful, but Pat frustrated Ja right from the start. And his 3 offensive rebounds in the first five minutes (all of which led to second chance buckets I think) set the table for this rout. We absolutely need to have a healthy PatBev to be successful this season.

DLo continues to surprisingly lead the team in on/off (and nobody else is even close to him) and games like this show you why. He didn't force things and scored efficiently, protected the ball well and made the right pass at the right time, and continued to show an aptitude for help defense he has never showed before. And his leadership when he subs in to play with the reserves late in the first quarter has been quite noticeable. He's still shooting under 40%, but he's having the best overall season of his career.

Finally- I know it was garbage time, but I really think Bolmaro can be something special. He has great size, handles the ball smoothly, plays defense like a cagey veteran, and looked good on his 2 shots last night. He's young and perhaps not ready to crack the rotation, but I really like his upside.

Just an outstanding game for our Wolves!

[FNG]

I liked Lip's optimistic post and agree with much of what he says in it. But we do a good job of providing balance in this forum, and it seems like it is time for that. So here we go with the balance portion of this thread:

1) After 3 straight wins we are 7-9. But let's not lose sight of the fact that is a winning percentage of .4375, which puts us on pace for 36 wins. And that's after the softest 16 games we are going to play all season.

2) The Wolves have shown that they can beat bottom feeding teams, but how are they going to fare once they start playing winning teams? Of our 7 wins, only one has been against a team with a winning record...and even that team (Bucks) was beat up and is only 9-8.

3) I don't have the stats on this, but I would guess that the Wolves have been the healthiest team in the league this season. In contrast, almost every one of our opponents has been missing either their best player or at least a key starter. DLo missed 2 of our 15 games, but those were the only two games where we were missing a true starter. Rosas put together a roster that doesn't have a great history of staying healthy. How resilient will we be when the inevitable injuries come? Specifically, it is clear that PatBev has almost singlehandedly turned this defense around (and last night was a great example). It would be unusual for him to stay healthy...he has averaged 52 games per year in his 9 seasons, and my sources tell me he is not getting any younger. How will this team respond when he is out?

So while I'm excited about how well we have played the past three games, we need to take the season to date in context. We're playing at a 36-win pace so far with perfect health. Can we keep it up once we start playing teams with winning records and start incurring injuries? Time will tell...