Game Report - Wolves v. Thunder

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

4 things here.


1. Lip, thanks for the write up. Excellent insights into the game as always.

2. Cam, I agree that Ricky is unique. I'm very happy that he is on our team. And I think that the wolves have to wait for him to be able to create his own shot if the Wolves are going to get to the second round of the POs. I think that anyone saying that anyone should have expected Rubio to be THIS bad at creating his own shot is disingenuous. Having already mentioned the uniqueness of Ricky not being able to do that, means that only clairvoyant people would have predicted that a 3rd year Ricky still can not adequately manage to dribble the ball up the court and then take shot. It is almost unheard of in the NBA.

3. Many people on this board write about how good our starting 5 are. That is very simple to agree with. On the other hand, when we lose all these close games, who does everyone think is on the court during the last 5 minutes of the game? Last night, when we put our starting 5 back on the court, they still had the lead. I guess that it is easy to blame the coach for playing the backup PG to much.......and that might be true, but all our starting 5 had to do last night was to hold onto the lead. It has happened many times this year. (I count that loss as our 12th "winnable" loss). It is very hard for me to think of our starting 5 as elite when that exact same starting 5 blows leads in the last 5 minutes frequently.

4. I think adding Bud will be very good for us. The team would not have sent Shabazz to the D-League if Bud didn't look good and ready to come back. IMHO.

[TAFKASP]

Love's missed free throws, Pek's butter fingers, Rubio's poor shooting, Corey's, well, being Corey, blah, blah, blah... etc...

If each of the bench players that failed to score a point made one, One, ONE damned basket they win. In 31 minutes of floor time against mostly OKC's backups DC, Shven, and Hummel couldn't find a way to score a single basket each, or three combined. I feel bad for JJ, he's not great himself or without blame, but put Rubio on the floor with that trash and he wouldn't be able to create any offense either. Opposing coaches must tell their players, just follow the little guy and the starter when the Wolves bench is in, nobody else can hurt us. Is there another team in the NBA that regularly gets less from their bench that the Wolves? OKC got 40 from their bench, OKC starters got more rest during the game so they were fresher down the stretch, how was this game not a freaking blow out for OKC?

We can talk all day long about where Wolves starters could have eeked out a few more point, maybe even should have eeked out a few more points. But when even an old Ryan Gomes who didn't even get off the bench for OKC would be guaranteed to give you more than the trash that get minutes off Minnesota's bench it's more than a tad ridiculous. This game should have been over by mid way through the 4th quarter at the latest if not for the effort of the five starters. This bench makes last years bench in Portland look like super subs and absolutely must be among the worst to ever grace the bench in all of the NBA's history!

[TAFKASP]

3. Many people on this board write about how good our starting 5 are. That is very simple to agree with. On the other hand, when we lose all these close games, who does everyone think is on the court during the last 5 minutes of the game? Last night, when we put our starting 5 back on the court, they still had the lead. I guess that it is easy to blame the coach for playing the backup PG to much.......and that might be true, but all our starting 5 had to do last night was to hold onto the lead. It has happened many times this year. (I count that loss as our 12th "winnable" loss). It is very hard for me to think of our starting 5 as elite when that exact same starting 5 blows leads in the last 5 minutes frequently.

OKC played five guys off of their bench who put up 40 points while playing 101 minutes. The Wolves got 5 points from 4 bench players playing a total of 45 minutes. So just to recap, OKC starters got a combined 56 minutes of extra rest during the game while having to produce 35 fewer point to compensate for their bench.

The above isn't atypical for the Wolves, it is rare that it isn't the case. Not only were the Wolves starters tired having played as a group 56 more minutes combined than their opponents, but they're only going to wear down more and more and more as the season progresses and the bench forces them to play the vast majority of each game. It's not simply that Wolves starters had to play more in last nights game, its the cumulative effects of doing so in damn near every game they've played this season.

IMO not a single finger need be pointed at the starters this year, not one.

[TAFKASP]

"I was hanging my head a little bit in the first half and my teammates got on me about it," Durant said. "So I just wanted to keep my head high no matter what and stay aggressive and I was able to hit a few."

The last four shots of that flurry were 3s, and he struck a pose and stared at the Wolves' bench after the final one cut Minnesota's lead to 97-96 with 7 minutes to play.

It's perfect, he stared at the bench when he made his shots late! No point pounding his chest to the Wolves starters as they did everything needed and then some. Durant mocked those who truly should have been ashamed of their performance! Bravo Kevin, bravo!

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

SP......who do you think is playing at the end of all these close games that we are losing? It isn't atypical for our starters to lose leads in the last 5 minutes of the game.

I guess if your argument is that we should play our bench in the last 5 minutes of close games, I would back that......it probably wouldn't have impacted our W/L record that much, if at all.

[TAFKASP]

SP......who do you think is playing at the end of all these close games that we are losing? It isn't atypical for our starters to lose leads in the last 5 minutes of the game.

I guess if your argument is that we should play our bench in the last 5 minutes of close games, I would back that......it probably wouldn't have impacted our W/L record that much, if at all.

I have no idea how you came up with that being my argument. :shock:

Last night our starters played 56 more minutes than the opposing starters. Or put another way, only one player on OKC played over 40 minutes and only one other played over 30 and then just 32. Our starters were going against players that had more to give to close out the game while the Wolves were running on fumes. Now take that situation and realize that it is the norm for Wolves starters, the cumulative effects of playing those types of minutes wear on a person. Shots that the starters would have made early in the game when their legs were still relatively fresh become harder late in the game, concentration levels begin to fade, performance does not remain peak when you're tired. If the players they're up against are equally tired then the argument that our starters lost holds water, but that's not the case.

My argument is that in large part the reason our starters have not been able to close out games is because they're already gassed by that point while the players they're competing against in those final minutes generally fresher having played fewer minutes.

And my much larger point is that the effects are cumulative of having played more minutes on average already this season then those they're competing against for wins in the final minutes.

[Kevin Glasshands [enjin:6642795]]

My hope is that those missed free throws humble Love a little bit.

[markkbu [enjin:6588958]]

SP......who do you think is playing at the end of all these close games that we are losing? It isn't atypical for our starters to lose leads in the last 5 minutes of the game.

I guess if your argument is that we should play our bench in the last 5 minutes of close games, I would back that......it probably wouldn't have impacted our W/L record that much, if at all.

I have no idea how you came up with that being my argument. :shock:

Last night our starters played 56 more minutes than the opposing starters. Or put another way, only one player on OKC played over 40 minutes and only one other played over 30 and then just 32. Our starters were going against players that had more to give to close out the game while the Wolves were running on fumes. Now take that situation and realize that it is the norm for Wolves starters, the cumulative effects of playing those types of minutes wear on a person. Shots that the starters would have made early in the game when their legs were still relatively fresh become harder late in the game, concentration levels begin to fade, performance does not remain peak when you're tired. If the players they're up against are equally tired then the argument that our starters lost holds water, but that's not the case.

My argument is that in large part the reason our starters have not been able to close out games is because they're already gassed by that point while the players they're competing against in those final minutes generally fresher having played fewer minutes.

And my much larger point is that the effects are cumulative of having played more minutes on average already this season then those they're competing against for wins in the final minutes.

Durant played as much as anyone on the court, and he didn't seem gassed. So I'm not seeing how your argument holds up. The gassed Durant scored the last 4 points that beat us. He also scored 7 points in the last 5 minutes.

This whole, "Wolves players get tired" argument, as to why our starters play so poorly in the 4th, seems pretty absurd to me. The only players that we have that play a lot as a starter for their position are the 2 highest paid players on our team (Love is 14th in MPG in the league and Pek is 39th). And I think that is why you pay people a whole bunch, is because they can play a lot of minutes well.........why else would you pay people a bunch?

Brewer, Martin, and Rubio play pretty average amounts for being starters at their position. (also, remember the whole D-Will argument, that if you are not giving a guy enough playing time, then you are not giving him a "chance")

(SP, I am not accusing you of this, cause I don't know if this a complaint from you) but people complain that Love plays too much on blow out wins and close losses.......but he still plays less than most of the top 10 players (and most of those players are on teams with winning records) in the league.

And Love even is playing 2 1/2 MPG less than a couple years ago and Anthony, Harden, Derozan,Parsons, Thompson, Durant, Afflallo, Curry, Deng, Wall, Turner, Aldridge. and Ellis all play more MPG than Love.

Houston, Golden State, and Portland all play their starters more than we do...........why don't they have this problem of "tired players"?

So, making the argument that the reason why our starters get outplayed in the 4th quarter is cause they are tired, just doesn't seem to hold much water.

[alexftbl8181 [enjin:6648741]]

by the way durant should get fined about 10 million for that flop last night

[AbeVigodaLive]

A couple of things...

- The Wolves shot lousy free throws last night. But look on the bright side... they'll shoot 94% in one of their 20+ point wins next week. (I hope my snark in this comment was obvious enough...)

- Love has been fantastic this season. It's hard to find too many faults... BUT... this is the 2nd very large "fluke" event at the end of a winnable game vs. a Western Conference opponent. He got a pass vs. the Clippers for the missed bunny, even though it was embarrassingly bad. This makes two... and 0 - 9 is becoming less of a "fluke."

- There's no question the team often struggles with Barea running the show compared to Rubio. A LOT of that has to do with Ricky Rubio.

A LOT of that has to do with Barea. It's not like we're comparing Rubio to an average backup PG in that regard. Barea sucks balls running an offense. He's an energy guy who you throw out and there and see what sticks when he's playing a helter skelter, almost selfish style. He's abysmal as a guy trying to get a team into sets and the ball to the right people at the right times.

It's why I was in favor of a move for Andre Miller earlier in the week, even if losing Barea makes the several year old quest to find anybody to create their own shots even more of a distant possibility.

Barea is a detriment right now. (even when he's playing well... he's a detriment in a lot of games... see the 2011 Finals game log to see what I mean.) I don't see how a guy like Miller would be.