Wolves at Hawks GDT

[thedoper]

Have to add Cam, Bazemore would be a sweet 3 wing. I'm sold. Make it happen.

[WildWolf2813]

I blame Rubio for this

[Lipoli390]

You can rarely blame a loss on one player, but I think it's pretty fair to blame Jeff Teague on this one. Although Tyus Jones didn't exactly seize the moment....

We needed this win too with a schedule loss tomorrow. It will only be a matter of time before OKC snags that 4th seed from us.

This was a terrible loss. But so were the home losses to Phoenix without Booker and the Sixers without Covington. So was the road loss to the Nets. But the main story of this loss was Teague and it was just his 1-12 shooting. And it wasn't even his idiotic failure to inbound the ball at the end as he called a timeout we didn't have. His decision-making was terrible throughout the game. But it didn't take this horrible peformance for me to conclude that signing him for 3 years at $19 million per year was a mistake.

Other story lines that explain the loss. One problem was the failure to get more shots for Towns in the offense. I don't know how much of that is on Thibs versus Teague. Another problem was the fact that we took only 19 threes compared to Atlanta's 34. It's hard to win NBA games with that sort of 3-point shooting deficit. I'm not sure why Thibs didn't have Crawford in there at the end when we needed a three to tie.

As I've said all season, this is a team that needs to score to win. We're just not going to win many games scoring 100 points or less. This is a team that typically needs to score 110 or more, which is something we should do routinely against bad teams like Atlanta. We need more ball movement and we need to get more shots from Towns in the half court. I don't know how much of the blame goes on Thibs versus Teague for the lack of ball movement and failure to get KAT more involved in the offense. But it wasn't just tonight, it's been all too common all season. We're 11 games over .500 and that's nice. But OKC is closing in on us as the Wolves head into the toughest part of their schedule in Feb and March. We have the talent to be the 3rd seed in the West, but we're probably going to end up the 5th or 6th seed. That's unfortunate.

[Lipoli390]

Yeah, I don't get the iso stuff from Thibs. Even if the ultimate play is designed for a guy like Butler, can we at least run some initial action to get him set up? Sometimes the defense breaks down with the early movement and a back door cutter gets free. Clear out after clear out is just so stagnant.

This is Thibs. I don't like it and have never liked it. He's helped instilled some toughness and discipline. But I believe this team has underachieved relative to its talent and schedule to date. We've completed the easiest part of our schedule and have benefitted further playing poor teams missing key players but losing to them anyway -- Phoenix without Booker, Spurs without Leonard, Sixers without Covington, Memphis without Conley. Atlanta wasn't missing any of their key players tonight, but they're a bad team that we absolutely should have beaten. No excuse!

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

I'm not nearly as down on this team as some of you are, but I share the disappointment from this game. We'll probably win a game in the coming week that we had no business winning to make up for this loss, but still, it'd be nice if we didn't play down to competition.

[Lipoli390]

We just have to start playing like we have unique offensive talent on this team. There is no doubt Butler is our best player, but KAT is our most unique on offense just explore a bit more of him in crunch time. He was 3-4 in the fourth all in the first 6mins.

Excellent point.

[kekgeek]

You can rarely blame a loss on one player, but I think it's pretty fair to blame Jeff Teague on this one. Although Tyus Jones didn't exactly seize the moment....

We needed this win too with a schedule loss tomorrow. It will only be a matter of time before OKC snags that 4th seed from us.

This was a terrible loss. But so were the home losses to Phoenix without Booker and the Sixers without Covington. So was the road loss to the Nets. But the main story of this loss was Teague and it was just his 1-12 shooting. And it wasn't even his idiotic failure to inbound the ball at the end as he called a timeout we didn't have. His decision-making was terrible throughout the game. But it didn't take this horrible peformance for me to conclude that signing him for 3 years at $19 million per year was a mistake.

Other story lines that explain the loss. One problem was the failure to get more shots for Towns in the offense. I don't know how much of that is on Thibs versus Teague. Another problem was the fact that we took only 19 threes compared to Atlanta's 34. It's hard to win NBA games with that sort of 3-point shooting deficit. I'm not sure why Thibs didn't have Crawford in there at the end when we needed a three to tie.

As I've said all season, this is a team that needs to score to win. We're just not going to win many games scoring 100 points or less. This is a team that typically needs to score 110 or more, which is something we should do routinely against bad teams like Atlanta. We need more ball movement and we need to get more shots from Towns in the half court. I don't know how much of the blame goes on Thibs versus Teague for the lack of ball movement and failure to get KAT more involved in the offense. But it wasn't just tonight, it's been all too common all season. We're 11 games over .500 and that's nice. But OKC is closing in on us as the Wolves head into the toughest part of their schedule in Feb and March. We have the talent to be the 3rd seed in the West, but we're probably going to end up the 5th or 6th seed. That's unfortunate.

I llike you lip but you over react to much after games. Right before teague hurt you were saying that he figured it out and he might be overpaid but a good signing.

You thought we were a 7th/8th seed when we were struggling and then when we played better we are a 3 seed and now after a bad loss we are a 6 seed in your mind.

You have come around on wiggins after a string of good games after months of saying the contact will come back to bite ( just want to say I posted about this a month ago that people will be back in the wiggins camp when his shot started to fall because wiggins does this every year).

I don't disagree with your main premise of needing better ball movement and needing to hit 110 pts. But don't overreact to bad loses we are 1 of I believe 2 teams that haven't lost 3 straight all year. And we are finishing up our toughest month of the season and played games without Jimmy and we didn't fall in the standings and we held ground.

Take a deep breath we got this. Don't let one game (what is a terrible loss) skew your perspective of the bigger picture and what the wolves are accomplishing this season.

[Big O [enjin:13874644]]

We are 5-5 in last 10. OKC has been 8-2 and is now 0.5 games behind. With our pending loss tomorrow they will move into 4th.

[kekgeek]

I'm not nearly as down on this team as some of you are, but I share the disappointment from this game. We'll probably win a game in the coming week that we had no business winning to make up for this loss, but still, it'd be nice if we didn't play down to competition.

I'm with you Cam. Losses like this shouldn't happen but they do. Still the 4 seed. Still have already won more games than we did all of last year. We are great at home and have struggled on the road. Hopefully the experience of the very good season helps us next year to finish the games against not as of teams. But right now. We are a damn tough out in the playoffs

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Have to add Cam, Bazemore would be a sweet 3 wing. I'm sold. Make it happen.

I would be aggressive in my pursuit of him if I were Thibs/Layden. One domino has already fallen with the Griffin trade. It won't be long before other deals pop off.