Wolves at Celtics GDT: another Beast in the East

[AbeVigodaLive]

- I don't know what to say about Wiggins, but we simply can't have him go this many consecutive games way off like this. He actually started to heat up a bit from outside way late in the game, after Thibs should have pulled the starters. But before that, he was just brutal.

Wiggins got hot late, once the pressure was off as the game was already lost.

Wiggins by month:

January:
22.1 ppg / 45.7% fg

February:
28.8 ppg / 51.4%

March:
17.8 ppg / 33.0% fg

He was 5 - 19 fg tonight... until hitting 4 straight in the final 3 minutes down by about 15 points. Meh. Even with the late stat-padding... it marked the 9th straight game where he shot below his season average from the field.

After 9 straight games with at least 10 fgs... he's gone 7 straight without 10 fgs.

In the past 6 games... he's been atrocious... sans the 2nd half of the Golden State game. No other way to put it.

Players go through shooting slumps. The really good ones figure out how to stop them before they become trends. Chalk it up to another learning experience for Wiggins.

Will the month of February (best month of career by far) prove to be a telltale sign... or an anomaly?

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

Not sure why people are throwing in the towel on this year. There is a LOT of basketball left...

Making up 4 games with 15 to play is just going to require disaster to strike the teams in front of us to make up given that we have the toughest schedule of everyone fighting for the 8th seed and we don't play the team we are chasing at all down the stretch. If we were trying to catch up to Portland we'd have a chance with 3 games against them to go, but sadly we are chasing a good Denver team with no head to heads left to make easily make up games.

[Mstermisty [enjin:6864008]]

Missed the game but just watched the replay. Tough night for the Wolves. Lose Belly, lose Lance, lose ground to all 3 teams they're chasing. It's not the nail in the coffin but the hammer is in hand. The loss of Belly might be what hurts us the most, he has been playing really well on both ends of the court, and there is nobody left to step up unless Cole has a late season renaissance, and Cole can't even get his warmup off most nights.

If Ricky is your leading scorer you are going to win the game pretty much never, unless he goes for a career high. To channel Captain Obvious, Wiggins needs to, HAS TO, break out of his slump Friday. If I'm Thibs I'd sit him down and say "listen young fella, you are going to shoot the ball 30 times tonight, and I want you to be aggressive and go to the hoop and seek out contact every chance you can. Don't settle for the jump-shot."

Respectable game tonight though against a very good, disciplined team. The refs did us no favors though, but that's nothing new. Until we start winning games consistently and grow up a bit we will continue to get no respect.

[60WinTim]

Not sure why people are throwing in the towel on this year. There is a LOT of basketball left...

Making up 4 games with 15 to play is just going to require disaster to strike the teams in front of us to make up given that we have the toughest schedule of everyone fighting for the 8th seed and we don't play the team we are chasing at all down the stretch. If we were trying to catch up to Portland we'd have a chance with 3 games against them to go, but sadly we are chasing a good Denver team with no head to heads left to make easily make up games.

Fine. Be a non-believer. But Denver now has a tougher schedule remaining than the Wolves. Denver only has one less road game remaining than the Wolves. And they have NO patsies left on the schedule. The Wolves have 3 games remaining with the Lakers and 1 with the Kings.

IMO, Denver has no shot at the 8th seed. The 8th seed belongs to Portland, unless the Wolves can win all 3 games left against Portland. Then it becomes interesting...

[MikkeMan]

Not sure why people are throwing in the towel on this year. There is a LOT of basketball left...

Making up 4 games with 15 to play is just going to require disaster to strike the teams in front of us to make up given that we have the toughest schedule of everyone fighting for the 8th seed and we don't play the team we are chasing at all down the stretch. If we were trying to catch up to Portland we'd have a chance with 3 games against them to go, but sadly we are chasing a good Denver team with no head to heads left to make easily make up games.

Fine. Be a non-believer. But Denver now has a tougher schedule remaining than the Wolves. Denver only has one less road game remaining than the Wolves. And they have NO patsies left on the schedule. The Wolves have 3 games remaining with the Lakers and 1 with the Kings.

IMO, Denver has no shot at the 8th seed. The 8th seed belongs to Portland, unless the Wolves can win all 3 games left against Portland. Then it becomes interesting...

Denver has won 54% of their home games. That is better winning percentage than any of their remaining opponents in home games have on road with the exception of Houston. So they should be favorite to win 5 of their home games.

They have won 41% of their road games. That is worse than home record of any of their remaining road opponents but still good enough that they can possibly upset Charlotte, Portland, Miami or New Orleans on road.

So I think it is more probable that they win at least one or more of their road games than that they would lose more than one of their home games. Especially if you consider that they have played much better after they moved Jokic to be their starting center. (Have 24-20 record with Jokic as starting center). I see that Denver wins at least 38 games.

To get same record, Portland should win at least 8 of their remaining 15 games. Based on Portland's home and road record, they are favorite to win just seven of their remaining games. So I think Denver is still slight favorite to grab that final playoff spot.

[Monster]

Bazz should just start closing his eyes when he shoots 3's. Jeebus, 2 of his last 25 or something like that.

It's been a tough stretch. The good news is Bazz has been able to make other contributions. Tonight he had 2 3 balls that went in and out. I like that he keeps shooting the ball when it goes to him. He has to break out at some point it's not like he has a broken shot or something.

What has been nifty is he has had a few possessions lately where he runs some pick and roll action with Towns and has been somewhat successful. His passing and playing within the offense and making some basic plays has certainly improved it's not a strength but it's maybe inching closer to at least being at the party instead of his game being a complete black hole.

[Monster]

Back in my day the Celtics didn't have cheerleaders. They had a big fat guy running around the arena waving a huge Celtic flag.

Lol reading this. Thanks Q

[Monster]

Missed the game but just watched the replay. Tough night for the Wolves. Lose Belly, lose Lance, lose ground to all 3 teams they're chasing. It's not the nail in the coffin but the hammer is in hand. The loss of Belly might be what hurts us the most, he has been playing really well on both ends of the court, and there is nobody left to step up unless Cole has a late season renaissance, and Cole can't even get his warmup off most nights.

If Ricky is your leading scorer you are going to win the game pretty much never, unless he goes for a career high. To channel Captain Obvious, Wiggins needs to, HAS TO, break out of his slump Friday. If I'm Thibs I'd sit him down and say "listen young fella, you are going to shoot the ball 30 times tonight, and I want you to be aggressive and go to the hoop and seek out contact every chance you can. Don't settle for the jump-shot."

Respectable game tonight though against a very good, disciplined team. The refs did us no favors though, but that's nothing new. Until we start winning games consistently and grow up a bit we will continue to get no respect.

Wiggins went to the rim a decent amount in this game he either missed the shot or was blocked. It just felt like except Rubio hitting shots it just wasn't the Wolves night and the Celtics did their thing. To me it looked like a team better prepared on both ends than the Wolves. That makes sense they are basically a vet team with a highly regarded coach that also has an MVP candidate.

Back to wiggins. Maybe he is sucking offensively but he has had one of his best stretches of doing all the other stuff I've seen from him. It's been great to see. I'm not worried about his offense. He will find himself again. Hasn't Klay gone through some poor stretches the last couple years?

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Monster, Everyone has tough stretches. The problem with Wiggins is that his tough/mediocre stretches are longer than his hot-as-hell stretches.

Ultimately, one of two things needs to change. His tough/mediocre stretches need to be less tough/mediocre or his white-hot stretches need to be longer. He's back down to a TS% of 53.3, which is pretty poor for a 20+ PPG scorer.

May be he'll end the season on a white-hot stretch again to lift his numbers back up, but his progress has been agonizingly up and down. I thought he really broke through in February, and then the bottom just sort of fell out.

He has been defending well of late, so that's encouraging.