keys to the game

[alexftbl8181 [enjin:6648741]]

1. pek pek pek pek

nothing really more needs to be said. The suns have nobody in the frontcourt who can come close to stopping the big fella. He SHOULD have a "clippers" type game tonight

2. love love love love

same reason as above. Love should have a field day tonight. Channing Frye? please

3. Ricky and brewer has a big defensive day.

They won't have to score but they have to be able to slow down the guards of the suns.

4. Slow the game down.

I would like to see the wolves slow the game down a bit when they have such a huge frontcourt advantage. Slow it down, have pek and love smash and ride it to victory.

Wolves should win tonight 104-97

Also faint whispers of bud playing tonight...

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

7 point win? That's it? Bledsoe's not playing. We're about murder Phoenix on national television.

Bud could make his return. I'm tracking the Twitter updates hoping to find someone confirm it. Would really like to see him play 15 minutes!

No Mbah a Moute again tonight as well.

[BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]]

What's wrong with Luc? For those who watch regularly, can you offer the rest of us some simple analysis of his play so far?

[ace [enjin:6598567]]

What's wrong with Luc? For those who watch regularly, can you offer the rest of us some simple analysis of his play so far?

He hurt his groin Saturday and hasn't played since.

Luc has been a bit up and down since joining the team. Against the Lakers he got assigned to Nick Young in the 4th quarter and shut him down when the Wolves needed it the most. Unfortunately no one else could help him. Overall, his defense has been good. His offense has been terrible though. Right now he needs to be on the floor with 2-3 scorers as he can't be relied on at all to provide offense other than putbacks.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

What's wrong with Luc? For those who watch regularly, can you offer the rest of us some simple analysis of his play so far?

He hurt his groin Saturday and hasn't played since.

Luc has been a bit up and down since joining the team. Against the Lakers he got assigned to Nick Young in the 4th quarter and shut him down when the Wolves needed it the most. Unfortunately no one else could help him. Overall, his defense has been good. His offense has been terrible though. Right now he needs to be on the floor with 2-3 scorers as he can't be relied on at all to provide offense other than putbacks.

Which brings me back to this. Mbah a Moute needs to be a starter and your last sentence is the major reason why. Plus, he'd be a good fit with the starters and it'd give our bench a much-needed spark.

I get why people don't wanna change the starting lineup. Why fix what isn't broken, right? Well, we'd be trying to fix the bench by doing this. I think the production from the starting lineup will still be very strong with Luc whereas our bench production should get better.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

What's wrong with Luc? For those who watch regularly, can you offer the rest of us some simple analysis of his play so far?

He hurt his groin Saturday and hasn't played since.

Luc has been a bit up and down since joining the team. Against the Lakers he got assigned to Nick Young in the 4th quarter and shut him down when the Wolves needed it the most. Unfortunately no one else could help him. Overall, his defense has been good. His offense has been terrible though. Right now he needs to be on the floor with 2-3 scorers as he can't be relied on at all to provide offense other than putbacks.

Which brings me back to this. Mbah a Moute needs to be a starter and your last sentence is the major reason why. Plus, he'd be a good fit with the starters and it'd give our bench a much-needed spark.

I get why people don't wanna change the starting lineup. Why fix what isn't broken, right? Well, we'd be trying to fix the bench by doing this. I think the production from the starting lineup will still be very strong with Luc whereas our bench production should get better.

The problem Cam is that if you bring Brewer off the bench, he is forced to look to shoot and create more off the dribble, the two activities that, when he performs them, general result in broken glass and orange pylons being erected. Luc is even more offensively limited, but at least he can control himself and knows his limits. By Brewer starting with Martin, Pek, and Love on the floor, that ensures that he's the 4th option and allows him to be more opportunistic with his scoring chances. On the flipside, Luc probably doesn't get made much better offensively by the second unit because he doesn't have the speed or aggressiveness of Brewer.

I do agree that Luc is probably a more versatile and reliable positional defender. If Brewer were injured, Luc would be a good stand in to start for him.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

What's wrong with Luc? For those who watch regularly, can you offer the rest of us some simple analysis of his play so far?

He hurt his groin Saturday and hasn't played since.

Luc has been a bit up and down since joining the team. Against the Lakers he got assigned to Nick Young in the 4th quarter and shut him down when the Wolves needed it the most. Unfortunately no one else could help him. Overall, his defense has been good. His offense has been terrible though. Right now he needs to be on the floor with 2-3 scorers as he can't be relied on at all to provide offense other than putbacks.

Which brings me back to this. Mbah a Moute needs to be a starter and your last sentence is the major reason why. Plus, he'd be a good fit with the starters and it'd give our bench a much-needed spark.

I get why people don't wanna change the starting lineup. Why fix what isn't broken, right? Well, we'd be trying to fix the bench by doing this. I think the production from the starting lineup will still be very strong with Luc whereas our bench production should get better.

The problem Cam is that if you bring Brewer off the bench, he is forced to look to shoot and create more off the dribble, the two activities that, when he performs them, general result in broken glass and orange pylons being erected. Luc is even more offensively limited, but at least he can control himself and knows his limits. By Brewer starting with Martin, Pek, and Love on the floor, that ensures that he's the 4th option and allows him to be more opportunistic with his scoring chances. On the flipside, Luc probably doesn't get made much better offensively by the second unit because he doesn't have the speed or aggressiveness of Brewer.

I do agree that Luc is probably a more versatile and reliable positional defender. If Brewer were injured, Luc would be a good stand in to start for him.

I pretty neutral on the topic.........and siding more with Q (excluding the hyperbole).......IMHO Brewer is most effective with the starting unit....where Luc effectiveness is not as contingent on which unit that he plays with.

Brewer fits well with the starting unit.......and I think that I would rather see him benched than play with a 2nd unit run by JJ. No offense to either of those guys, I just don't see their skills meshing at all.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

What's wrong with Luc? For those who watch regularly, can you offer the rest of us some simple analysis of his play so far?

He hurt his groin Saturday and hasn't played since.

Luc has been a bit up and down since joining the team. Against the Lakers he got assigned to Nick Young in the 4th quarter and shut him down when the Wolves needed it the most. Unfortunately no one else could help him. Overall, his defense has been good. His offense has been terrible though. Right now he needs to be on the floor with 2-3 scorers as he can't be relied on at all to provide offense other than putbacks.

Which brings me back to this. Mbah a Moute needs to be a starter and your last sentence is the major reason why. Plus, he'd be a good fit with the starters and it'd give our bench a much-needed spark.

I get why people don't wanna change the starting lineup. Why fix what isn't broken, right? Well, we'd be trying to fix the bench by doing this. I think the production from the starting lineup will still be very strong with Luc whereas our bench production should get better.

The problem Cam is that if you bring Brewer off the bench, he is forced to look to shoot and create more off the dribble, the two activities that, when he performs them, general result in broken glass and orange pylons being erected. Luc is even more offensively limited, but at least he can control himself and knows his limits. By Brewer starting with Martin, Pek, and Love on the floor, that ensures that he's the 4th option and allows him to be more opportunistic with his scoring chances. On the flipside, Luc probably doesn't get made much better offensively by the second unit because he doesn't have the speed or aggressiveness of Brewer.

I do agree that Luc is probably a more versatile and reliable positional defender. If Brewer were injured, Luc would be a good stand in to start for him.

At this point, let Corey do his thing. Sounds terrible, but have you seen our bench play this year? It's been quite awful to this point and something's gotta change. I do think having Bud and Turiaf will help a lot, but I do have it in my mind that switching Mbah a Moute and Brewer would be best for the team anyways.

Even with Corey starting, he's still throwing up 10 shots a game (4 3PAs!) and he's taking away shot attempts from Love, Pek and Martin at times. We saw at the beginning of the year how Brewer would cut and cut and leak and leak and get easy buckets and rarely tried to do too much. As the season's continued, he's been out of control sometimes when looking for his own shot while on the floor with three bonafied scorers. I'm not gonna lie, it gets frustrating just because with that group, he shouldn't be doing that.

So why, Camden, would you want him doing that off the bench with more shots at his disposal? Well, there's not many offensive options on our bench right now. JJ's ball dominant, yes. But the more I think about it, I think that's 60% because that's just how JJ is and 40% because nobody else other than DC is willing to take shots. Mbah a Moute knows he isn't a scorer so he doesn't bother. Turiaf's a putback guy; he has no offense. Shved likes to create, but he can't finish in the paint well enough and his jumper has been broken for the majority of the season. Corey's at least aggresive enough to try to score, get to the line, get steals and easy buckets, etc. Him and JJ could be that combo of craziness that could work. Who knows? I don't, but I sure as hell would like to see it.

So, Budinger's coming back. That will help the issue, no doubt about it. Now the problem is we have a guy (Mbah a Moute) that could contribute with valuable defense and rebounding not in the rotation. So I propose we insert Mbah a Moute into the starting lineup to contribute already-said defense and rebounding. I think Luc's man and help defense are far superior to Brewer's, no disrespect to Brewer, but Luc's just is. His rebounding is also superior. Luc's also not going to take shots away from better scorers. With a unit that doesn't have a rim protector, the next best option is to have the best smart/reliable defenders on the floor that you can. Luc's defense makes more of an impact team-wise than Corey's.

A Barea/Brewer/Budinger/DC/Turiaf unit seems (in my head) like itt could actually do something for this team. A bench that could consistently both stretch a lead or get the starters out of a hole should they be in one. I don't feel the same with Barea/Budinger/Mbah a Moute/DC/Turiaf. I think they can compete, sure, but it's not a better unit than the previously mentioned one.

PG: Rubio...Barea
SG: Martin...Brewer
SF: MaM...Budinger
PF: Love...Cunningham
C: Pekovic...Turiaf

Now that I've typed all this, I realize it should have gone in the "The Bench" thread. Oops. Last thought: Having that Brewer/Budinger/DC/Turiaf foursome would also make an Andre Miller acquisition better. Miller would work well with that lineup.