Game Report - Wolves v. Pacers

[Lipoli390]

Putrid performance by the Wolves last night. This report will be short. The Wolves came out with no energy. Crawford, Bazz and KAT were the only Wolves players who showed any energy on the court, and KAT's energy was limited for the most part to the offensive end of the floor. There is absolutely no excuse for a disgusting performance like this from a team with the talent the Wolves have, playing on their home court. Yes, Butler was out, but so was the Pacer's Turner. It doesn't bode well if the Wolves are this dependent on Butler. Losing to the Pacers on our home court is troublesome in and of itself if this team truly has aspirations beyond a 7th or 8th seed. But getting blown off the court and playing with absolutely no heart or energy cannot be excused.

As a team -- no energy, poor defense, poor movement both with and without the ball on the offensive end and poor shooting.

I was surprised by some of the posts in the game thread, which went after KAT. While I agree he played poorly on the defensive end, so did everyone else on Wolves except maybe Crawford and Bazz. And KAT did have 28 points. Other than Belly and Crawford (maybe Bazz) KAT was the only one who came through on the offensive end. As for KAT's rebounding, his 7 boards in 30 minutes was disappointing, but keep in mind that our three power forwards (Dieng, Taj and Belly) had 8 rebounds between them in 60 minutes. And no one else stepped up on the boards either.

Teague was absolutely terrible. No energy, no floor leadership, horrible decision-making, holding the ball when teammates would get open or termporarily establish good post position. These are things you perhaps couldn't see on TV, but those of us in my section were really down on Teague. Wiggins was just as bad. Going 1-6 from the free thrown line wasn't even the worst of it. You can't be anything close to a max player and have games like the one Wiggins had last night. He was a complete nonfactor. Correction, he was a negative factor.

Crawford was the guy who brought us back to even in the first half. He played with energy every minute he was on the floor, but sadly he was the only T-Wolf who did this. This can't happen again. It's gut check time for this team.

Now, it's off to work for me. I'd better bring more energy to my job today than we saw from the Wolves last night or I'll be fired.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Good report Lip. Sorry you were there in person to witness that trainwreck. I agree with Monster from the game thread that the Pacers were on fire. They were hitting shot after shot and a lot of them were not wide open. Since when did Olodipo turn into Ray freakin' Allen!?

Still, teams get hot. You've got to find a way to disrupt their rhythm, get physical, fight over screens harder, etc. It's that "second effort" Thibs often talks about, It was absolutely not there last night.

The other thing that just killed us was terrible floor balance on offense. There were a number of missed shots we had where we had three guys along our own baseline and only one or two guys in a position to get back in transition. It gave Indiana a ton of easy layups.

The T-Wolves players should reimburse fans for their well spent money on that game!

[60WinTim]

Yeah, sorry you had to witness that in person, Lip.

That is the first game where I had doubts about the Rubio/Teague swap...

We didn't get many rebounds because there were not many rebounds to be had -- Pacers didn't miss very often.

[60WinTim]

Friday, December 9th, 2016 the Wolves were SMACKED around by Detroit, 117-90. It was the low point of the season for me, and a turning point for the Wolves. They used that ass-whooping to begin a 22-21 run leading up to the Boston game when Belly injured himself.

I sure hope the Wolves are able to use this game as a turning point, too.

[Monster]

Lip I'm curious about how Thibs was because every time they showed him down the stretch he seemed calm sorta like a normal person which is weird when his team was getting beat. Lol

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

KAT could drop 30 a night and it won't matter if he doesn't play defense. This is the Kevin Love argument all over again except KAT is the Center so the defense at the rim starts with him while Pek was really the center point for those Love defenses. There simply isn't a more impactful defensive position than a rim protecting big because they can cover up so many defensive deficiencies on the rest of the team. When that guy can't stop anything it just compounds the rest of the bad defense on the court. We simply won't go far in this league if KAT is only gonna care and exert effort on 1 side of the ball and losing clearly hasn't had any affect on his mindset and why would it if all he hears is that his 27/7 is what kept us in a game or made up for his defense, etc.? He says the same things after these embarrassing performances and yet they keep happening and a large part of that is his complete ineptitude to provide any resistance to the opposing team defensively. Frankly we will never be title contenders if he doesn't get his shit together on the defensive end of the court and become a plus defender. It may be harsh, but at his position offensive prowess just doesn't overcome defensive ineptitude like it can at other positions. The defense starts and stops with him.

[Coolbreeze44]

Kawhi Leonard misses games yet the Spurs still find a way. Indiana played without Turner and they still found a way. The Wolves can't fold like a house of cards every time Butler misses a game, and his history suggests this is going to happen from time to time. They still have the appearance of a very fragile, immature team. How could this group, never having accomplished anything, be feeling their oats after the big win in OKC? This immaturity needs to end right now or it's going to be another in a long line of disappointments for the franchise. They should be embarrassed by the lack of effort and accountability last night. If I'm Glen Taylor I'm asking some pointed questions this morning.

[Duke13]

I was at the game last night. Had the fortune of sitting court side in Cambria's seats. I thought Kat was terrible, both side of the ball. He had the stretch in the 2nd/3rd quarter where he scored at will often going 3-1, he's yet to figure out how to make players better. During this stretch Kat felt the need to start jawing with Sabonis, one time chasing him down the court and tripping him, getting called for the foul and crying about it. Crawford, from the bench tried to wave Kat over to him to calm him down. Kat looked right at him and waved him off, and just ignored him,Crawford was noticeably annoyed. I thought that was interesting because I've seen a handful of times in huddles this year where Crawford is coaching Kat, which I think is great and needed.

He's such a selfish player to me, he's the most annoying player on the team in my eyes. He lacks any sort of leadership skills. Even worse is he pretends to be a leader. At least Wiggins doesn't present. Lip, you're at a lot of games, give me an example of Kat showing leadership skills, encouraging teammate, etc...

Also, Tyus played his worst game in awhile. He had about 3-4 opportunities when the ball was swung around the perimeter where he passed up wide open 3's instead passing to much less open teammates. It was bad, Belly did this a couple time also.

[TheFuture]

I was at the game last night. Had the fortune of sitting court side in Cambria's seats. I thought Kat was terrible, both side of the ball. He had the stretch in the 2nd/3rd quarter where he scored at will often going 3-1, he's yet to figure out how to make players better. During this stretch Kat felt the need to start jawing with Sabonis, one time chasing him down the court and tripping him, getting called for the foul and crying about it. Crawford, from the bench tried to wave Kat over to him to calm him down. Kat looked right at him and waved him off, and just ignored him,Crawford was noticeably annoyed. I thought that was interesting because I've seen a handful of times in huddles this year where Crawford is coaching Kat, which I think is great and needed.

He's such a selfish player to me, he's the most annoying player on the team in my eyes. He lacks any sort of leadership skills. Even worse is he pretends to be a leader. At least Wiggins doesn't present. Lip, you're at a lot of games, give me an example of Kat showing leadership skills, encouraging teammate, etc...

Also, Tyus played his worst game in awhile. He had about 3-4 opportunities when the ball was swung around the perimeter where he passed up wide open 3's instead passing to much less open teammates. It was bad, Belly did this a couple time also.

I share the sentiment about KAT. In fact, I'd take it a step further and say he is quickly becoming my least favorite player. He is a supreme talent, but I'm starting to see that all the talk has gotten to his head. He is always out of position on D and fails to ever box out simply relying on his talent to hopefully get boards, plays like a guard with 3 fouls when someone comes at the rim so as to ensure that he can continue to get his on the offensive end, forces way too much when he feels hot or hasnt gotten his, and then regurgitates the same bs post game and does nothing different. His head/ego seems larger than the teams cumulative. His 20/10 begins to look like it comes at the expense of the team.

I won't get started too much on Teague. His OKC game was great, and light years ahead of what Rubio can do as far as repertoire offensively, but when he is off, he is worthless. At least Rubio covered 80% of the game any given night. Rubio/Wiggins/Butler/Belly/Kat would have been dynamite.

[Coolbreeze44]

We are so close to being 0-4 it's damn near funny. I said I really can't make any intelligent judgments on this group for at least 10 games, but I'm so aggravated at the time wasted last night watching them. And to top it off I recorded the Wild game and watched that abomination afterward. The Wolves need to show something tonight.

And by the way, no one should be giving Thibs a free pass at this point. He was never my choice to begin with, but I've kept away from criticizing him so far. At a minimum his in-game decisions and demeanor should come under advanced scrutiny.