lipoli390 wrote:I didn't watch tonight's game and based on the box score as well as what I've read on this thread I don't plan to watch the recording.
The storyline I gleaned from the box score is that the Wolves lost for three reasons: (1) the Hawks out rebounded the Wolves by 9 boards; (2) he Hawks shot a lot better from the field than the Wolves; and (3) the Hawks got to the line a lot more than the Wolves and hit a much higher percentage of their foul shots when they got there.
As for shooting differential, the Wolves took 12 more shots than the Hawks, including 9 more three-point attempts. However, the Wolves hit only 39.6% of their FG attempts and 37.8% of their three-point attempts compared to Atlanta's 48.8% and 39.3%. The FG differential is enormous and suggests that the Hawks were scorning a lot of fairly easy buckets inside while the Wolves, without KAT, were in their typical form taking a lot of perimeter jump shots. Yet, Atlanta still made only one more FG than the Wolves while the Wolves made 3 more three-pointers. So in spite of the huge percentage differential in FG shooting and the rebounding difference, the Wolves still would have won this game if not for the gigantic free-throw differential. The Hawks had 25 free throw-attempts and made all but two of them. In contrast, the Wolves had only 16 attempts and made only 11 of them for a 68.8 FT percentage. And that was the difference in the game - Houston's 23 free throws made compared to the Wolves 11.
Those stats tell me that the Hawks were successfully attacking the paint, which resulted in a lot of layups and dunks that contributed to their high FG percentage and a lot of foul calls that resulted in the huge free-throw differential that ultimately gave Atlanta the win. It tells me that, other than KAT, we don't have players who defend or score effectively and efficiently in the paint. Instead, we have an undersized team up front and wings who aren't effective at stopping dribble penetration or scoring in the paint. I'm interested in finding out of my box score conclusions match what you guys saw in the game.
Sort of correct. I actually thought this was the best performance defensively the Wolves had without Kat all year. Dlo was actually bringing a lot of energy side of the ball.
The high fg % from the Hawks came from capela just being around the rim. But it wasn't a layup line like most of the season, more of a roster construction issues. Wolves has some miss communication today, we switched 1-4 and dropped covered any PnR involving Capela and in theory great strategy but they had some miss communications leading to open jumpers (youth issue). Then the zone was bad, it was a wide open 3 or a alley oop. It made no sense to me switching to zone when the Wolves competed man to man (coaching issue). So many turnovers by the Wolves lead to easy Hawks baskets.
Wolves actually attacked the hoop today and tried to get to the line but there was a ton of drive the lane from Okogie, Culver, Ant and Jmac (less from Jmac), the Hawks wall up and the shot was blocked or wild double pump layup.
I actually think the Wolves competed on D today when there coach had them playing man to man. More of an offense issue today outside of Dlo it was bad. Are you shocked though, Beasley shot bad it happens but he is averaging 11pts less on the road this year. Wolves played 4 guys who are so limited on offense in Okogie, Culver, Vanderbilt and Davis. Those 4 might be the just offensively limited rotation players in the NBA. Edwards tried to attack but couldn't get it going (he complained after the game he is not used to not getting calls), McDaniels sat in the corner and went 1/3 from 3 and missed a transition bucket where you see he needs to add strength and then Jmac solid but he had Jeff Teague syndrome pump faking so many 3s
Wolves competed today but they don't do anything well and if Dlo was bad today this game would have been ugly, I also don't think the Hawks like each other at all, that team chemistry seemed terrible
