We have an NBA championship caliber starting lineup

[BloopOracle]

a few tweaks to the bench this offseason and we will be in the WCF, we outscore opposing starting lineups by 15+ consistently

[TAFKASP]

And yet it was Love's missed free throws, Pek's bobbled balls, and Rubio's missed shots that lost last night. /sarcasm

I hate the constant links between Portland and Minnesota, especially as Portland always seem to come out on top of most of them. But Minnesota is last years Trailblazers, a quality starting five with less than no support from the bench. Give the Wolves starting five an average NBA bench and they're fighting for a top three playoff position in the tough west.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

Our starting 5 has a very difficult time closing games. Last night is a good example. When they came in to close the game, they had the lead. All they had to do was to hold onto the lead.

Of our losses, it is pretty common for our starting lineup to lose leads very late in the game.

As good as we may thing that our starting 5 is, they frequently get outplayed in the last 5 minutes, hencethe high number the close games that we lose.

If we can't win close games we'll never win a series in the POs.

[TAFKASP]

Our starting 5 has a very difficult time closing games. Last night is a good example. When they came in to close the game, they had the lead. All they had to do was to hold onto the lead.

Of our losses, it is pretty common for our starting lineup to lose leads very late in the game.

As good as we may thing that our starting 5 is, they frequently get outplayed in the last 5 minutes, hencethe high number the close games that we lose.

If we can't win close games we'll never win a series in the POs.

Tell ya what, you and me are going to compete. We're going to run a 5K, but with one little twist, you're going to run an extra 1K just before our race. Now tell me, when the finish line is in sight and we're side by side, which of us do you think has the gas complete the sprint to the end?

Now combine that with the fact we're going to do this 33 times with an occasional day of rest here and there and a few back to backs. Will it become progressively more difficult for you to win that sprint to the finish line as the number of races raced increases?

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

As much as i like the idea of you and I racing....

When I played sports at a relatively high level that extra 1 K would not have impacted me at all.......outside of ensuring that I ended up in better shape than you at the end of that span of time.

Now that extra 1 K still wouldn't matter, but for very different reasons.


...now to the relevant part of the conversation.....


We are sort of having the same conversation on 2 different threads........so I will keep this quick...

The only players that we have that play significantly higher than league average for starters at their position are our 2 highest paid players. Brewer, Martin, and Rubio play about average minutes for a starters at their position.

Love averages less minutes than most top 10 players (who as a whole are on better teams).

Portland, GS, and Houston all play their starters more than we do, why don't they have these "tired player" problems?

Really, if you look at how much good teams play their starters, there isn't much of a correlation between wins and starter minutes played.

[thedoper]

Last game Love had no rest in the 2nd half. It is a fair point to make that this type of substitution pattern is not ideal. Otherwise all coaches would never rest their best players in the 2nd half. Love was tired. He should have had the opportunity for rest. But our bench is so bad that he didn't get it. No team aims to have their best players play 24 mins a half. But what do you do in a close game when you have one of the worst benches in the NBA?

[thedoper]

Also it is more fair to compare for position on this issue. Minutes on a big should be looked at in a different light than minutes for wings and guards. Love is #2 for average minutes for PF, Pek is #3 for centers. It is not ideal as I see it.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

It's a pretty simple formula. Our starting 5 does not have the defensive ability to get stops when needed down the stretch combined with the fact that they are tired and that causes the offense to suffer. Elite teams win games because of the stops they make down the stretch, not by destroying teams with offensive execution. We're 0-9 in clutch games because we can't make the stops needed to win. If you can't stop anybody, they just have to stop you once and they will beat you.

[observerII [enjin:6598557]]

Yeah, what khans said. . .

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

It's a pretty simple formula. Our starting 5 does not have the defensive ability to get stops when needed down the stretch combined with the fact that they are tired and that causes the offense to suffer. Elite teams win games because of the stops they make down the stretch, not by destroying teams with offensive execution. We're 0-9 in clutch games because we can't make the stops needed to win. If you can't stop anybody, they just have to stop you once and they will beat you.

Missed easy tip-in at the buzzer against Clips... K-Mart gave away the ball and the game when LAC had to foul... No call against the Mavs... Love missed FTs...

Just off the top of my head that's four games that were lost by lack of offensive execution. Not even getting into it about the bench, though that's the biggest problem of them all.