Wolves hunt Bucks GDT???

[Coolbreeze44]

The Bucks had nobody that could stay in front of Wiggins.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I was at the game last night, but won't do a full game report because I had to leave at half time (son-in-law's hot band was playing early at the Turf Club). A few first half observations though.

The crowd...wow! First of all, it was the biggest crowd I have seen since the KG return night...at least 3/4 of the upper deck was full. And they were into it...great electric atmosphere. I'm only being somewhat facetious when I make this next statement. Because the crowd was so loud, I couldn't hear Thibs for the first time this year, and I'm certain the Wolves on the court couldn't hear him either...I never once saw a player glancing over his shoulder warily at Thibs with the ball in play.

And that leads to my next point. This is the loosest I have seen this team at home all year. Defense was a struggle again (exasperating at times), but the offense shared the ball in a manner we only see usually from our opponents. So much fun to see the ball move around like that, and the result was some wide open threes that NBA players will make if given the chance...13 for 25 on threes is terrific bet doesn't surprise me with this team if we swing the ball like last night. This team can shoot with the best of them when open. I didn't see the second half, so I can't speak to Cool's point in the thread that the Wig-initiated offense was very good in the 4th, but it seemed like every basket in the first half was assisted...so unusual for this sticky-fingered hero-ball favoring team. As I check out the box score, I see a very good stat...the Wolves had 30 assists on their 43 made baskets! Wow!

We won, so I'm not going to complain too much about Thibs' rotations, but the box score tells me he didn't use his bench enough again...I'm not going to research this, but it may be true that our bench has played fewer minutes than our opponent in every game this year. And the bench was playing really well. I thought Dunn looked like a PG tonight and made things easy for his teammates like Ricky does. And of course Bazz and Belly made their wide-open threes...I think we have to admit that this game is much closer if they don't.

My final point...don't miss the opportunity to see Antepokounpo whenever he is on TV (since they won't come here again this year. He is truly a special player. He handles the ball like it's on a string and is almost unstoppable when he decides to drive to the basket. As others have said, Wig showed great effort most of the game and actually did a decent job on the Freak...I think he got juiced up for the challenge. I question how they use the Freak because he seems to lack vision when playing the point...missed the opportunity to get the ball to wide open teammates countless times in the first half. Maybe he gets more comfortable with this as he continues to paly the point, but if he doesn't, they need to find a real PG and put Giannis at SF.

Very entertaining game, and fodder for the optimists here...very good offensive performance.

LST, Glad to hear the crowd was good last night. The Atlanta game was pretty full too and folks got into it....although the loudest roar came from the two missed free throws in the 4th!

As for Thib's rotations, he could have pulled the starters with 2 minutes left and I have no idea why he didn't. May be it's a psychological thing where he wants these guys to physically experience being on the floor when the final buzzer sounds and we're on the winning end. Ya know....soak in that feeling and hopefully it comes in handy the next time it gets tight down the stretch. It's a reach, but I don't know why else he did it.

On Giannis, what's scary about him is that he is still pretty raw. The one thing holding him back is he has a shaky outside shot. But otherwise, he's like something we've never seen before.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

That's great that you saw some energy in the Atlanta game too, Q...coincidentally another win. Chicken and egg...do wins produce crowd energy, or do the crowds produce wins. A little of both I guess. Regardless, the team clearly got a lift from the crowd last night. Home court advantage is such as asset in the NBA, and so far this year we have had practically none.

Yeah, the Freak is something else. It's so unfair that we get him once a year here when they are geographically the closest team to us...what??? Moving to the east makes so much sense and would set up a wonderful rivalry for years between us and the Bucks. We would miss seeing the stars in the West a lot for a few years, but bad finishes in the east are putting some very intriguing players in the east, and the prospect of watching teams like the Bucks, Knicks, Sixers, Celtics et al may be more fun the watching the same tired old west teams...and make much more sense geographically. And let us get to bed earlier.

Glen is a powerful guy in the ownership club and he's also very practical and smart, and I'm curious about what kind of efforts he is making toward realignment. I'm going to do some back channel work and see what I can find out.