I Told You (Wolves vs. Nuggets GT)

[Wolvesfan21]

This team is a fucking embarrassment.

[Q-is-here]

Stars have to shine bright in big games. That didn't happen for us last night. 11 points from KAT is embarrassing. Gobert had 5 shots the whole game. Twin tower experiment is getting a rigorous field test this series. If it fails, it would certainly be reasonable to go a different direction next year. You certainly can't just run it back. But it's one game...let's see what happens.

We've been a bottom 10 offense all year, which is hard to swallow when you think about those Utah teams Rudy was on. Utah was the #1 offense in the NBA last year, the #3 offense the year prior, and the #10 offense the year prior to that. The last time Rudy was on a Bottom 10 offense was his rookie year in Utah.

Ant and Rudy just don't work on offense. Unfortunately Ant is still a novice when it comes to pick and roll play making. He is fine at kicking out the ball. But when it comes to the nuances of pocket passes and lobs to rolling bigs, especially a big like Rudy, he's terrible. Zero synergy on offense between these two except for the occasional great screen Rudy sets. But Rudy knows he will almost never get the ball back after setting those screens. His only purpose is to help get Ant going down hill.

So we can trade Rudy to open up the middle more for Ant and KAT, but then what happens to our defense? It's like whack-a-mole.....

[AbeVigodaLive]

Abe's Positively Super Duper Serious DVR Review.


- Tim Connelly showed off his genius touch tonight. His two biggest acquisitions this season both shot 60% from the field!

- What can you do? Denver is too good of a defensive team. They held teams under 100 points 8 times out of 82 games this season... and almost held 1 team under 91.

- A hidden factor in this game is rebounding. Denver had 54. Minnesota had 38. That's to be expected though. Denver is just built to rebound with a much taller team featuring Jokic and Gordon up front.

- On closer look, Towns actually did pretty well. 11 points is more than he scored in 3 of his previous 11 playoff games. And he was dominant in the 4th quarter, scoring a quick 7 points to get the Wolves back within 27.

- You can't fault Jordan McLaughlin for his exemplary assist-to-TO ratio tonight. T. Prince did a great job protecting the ball, too. ZERO TOs!

- The Wolves did a great job holding the Nuggets to 65% from the free throw line.

I'm picking up on your sarcasm

The Curmudgeon Quotient is at a dangerously high level today. Everyone needs to stay off Abe's lawn today.

Actually, I thought I was going for the opposite, just trying to have a little fun to break up all the "Just a terrible performance..." posts.

[Wolvesfan21]

Stars have to shine bright in big games. That didn't happen for us last night. 11 points from KAT is embarrassing. Gobert had 5 shots the whole game. Twin tower experiment is getting a rigorous field test this series. If it fails, it would certainly be reasonable to go a different direction next year. You certainly can't just run it back. But it's one game...let's see what happens.

We've been a bottom 10 offense all year, which is hard to swallow when you think about those Utah teams Rudy was on. Utah was the #1 offense in the NBA last year, the #3 offense the year prior, and the #10 offense the year prior to that. The last time Rudy was on a Bottom 10 offense was his rookie year in Utah.

Ant and Rudy just don't work on offense. Unfortunately Ant is still a novice when it comes to pick and roll play making. He is fine at kicking out the ball. But when it comes to the nuances of pocket passes and lobs to rolling bigs, especially a big like Rudy, he's terrible. Zero synergy on offense between these two except for the occasional great screen Rudy sets. But Rudy knows he will almost never get the ball back after setting those screens. His only purpose is to help get Ant going down hill.

So we can trade Rudy to open up the middle more for Ant and KAT, but then what happens to our defense? It's like whack-a-mole.....

That is what doesn't make sense. I either overvalued our players abilities or our coaches or both. If anything it made sense to me that replacing Vando with Rudy would improve the offense. Vando isn't the finisher or screener that Rudy is.

Maybe Rudy has had back problems all year or other nagging injuries. Maybe that is part of it too.

Maybe the players listened to the noise that it was a terrible trade and that Rudy is a sucky player. Utah was a great team consistently with Rudy on offense and defense.

So really it comes down to our other players are simply trash. Rudy has been hampered with injuries. Our coaches are trash. Or some combo of the three.

[Leado01]

I couldn't even get on the board last night I was so distraught.

I'm a little more upbeat this morning knowing that we likely can't play any worse.

Is ANT injured? He looks slow and he's lost some explosiveness? I'd really like to see him bounce of Jokic's shoulders a lot more in game 2 with some punishing drives.

NAW was the only starter that exceeded expectations last night. I do love the way he plays defense.

If Nowell is healthy we're really going to need to play him. We need more speed to beat Denver as they are straight up stronger and more physical.

We REALLY missed Naz last night as I don't think Denver bench can keep up with him. We are REALLY going to miss him next year as well.

[Carlos Danger]

Stars have to shine bright in big games. That didn't happen for us last night. 11 points from KAT is embarrassing. Gobert had 5 shots the whole game. Twin tower experiment is getting a rigorous field test this series. If it fails, it would certainly be reasonable to go a different direction next year. You certainly can't just run it back. But it's one game...let's see what happens.

We've been a bottom 10 offense all year, which is hard to swallow when you think about those Utah teams Rudy was on. Utah was the #1 offense in the NBA last year, the #3 offense the year prior, and the #10 offense the year prior to that. The last time Rudy was on a Bottom 10 offense was his rookie year in Utah.

Ant and Rudy just don't work on offense. Unfortunately Ant is still a novice when it comes to pick and roll play making. He is fine at kicking out the ball. But when it comes to the nuances of pocket passes and lobs to rolling bigs, especially a big like Rudy, he's terrible. Zero synergy on offense between these two except for the occasional great screen Rudy sets. But Rudy knows he will almost never get the ball back after setting those screens. His only purpose is to help get Ant going down hill.

So we can trade Rudy to open up the middle more for Ant and KAT, but then what happens to our defense? It's like whack-a-mole.....

Yes. And this is brought up a lot in the past...will it be Rudy that goes or KAT? I feel it will be the later for the following reason (most of which have been brought up here by myself and others multiple times):

1.) TC gave up so much to get Rudy, I can't see him back tracking after one year. That would be admitting his own incompetency in evaluating the roster/fit.

2.) Selling on Rudy after this shit season would mean pennies on the dollar return. KAT would get much more.

3.) You already brought up the defense issue if we move on from Rudy. It's the reason they got him to begin with.

I feel similar to Wolvesfan, that this might be an implementation issue. Rudy/Edwards combined for the second most minutes when I look at the 2 man line ups. They were a plus 34. That's not great, but at least it was a plus. Rudy and SlowMo were team best plus 140 in 2 man line ups. Rudy's not a bad player. But he's certainly not a plug and play guy either. I feel like it's far more likely they continue to try and figure out the right combinations to keep Rudy in the fold for next year. Especially considering items #1, #2 and #3.

IMO, Rudy would have to punch a couple more people in order for TC to move on from him.

[Papalrep]

As far as this series... Naz is out, Mcdaniels is out, Ant is banged up and slowed, Gobert has a bad back, KAT is...whatever. What reason for optimism is there?

[Wolvesfan21]

As far as this series... Naz is out, Mcdaniels is out, Ant is banged up and slowed, Gobert has a bad back, KAT is...whatever. What reason for optimism is there?

There is an small element of luck but some is self inflicted too. Gobert is over 30 and over 7 foot. Is him being banged up that surprising? Not really. Him being close to 100% would be unlikely at this point in his career. Still possible, just not expected.

Ant plays pretty aggressive and made comments about playing hurt so he has. Some more rest here and there with still making the playoffs and he might be in healthier condition. Then is he eating fully or at least mostly healthy now?

McDaniels punched a wall.

KAT has perpetually been up and down in big games.

NAZ is the only one who maybe bad luck got.

I would say the Wolves have gotten what they deserved for the most part. It's been self inflicted. No excuses for not being better.

[Q-is-here]

Stars have to shine bright in big games. That didn't happen for us last night. 11 points from KAT is embarrassing. Gobert had 5 shots the whole game. Twin tower experiment is getting a rigorous field test this series. If it fails, it would certainly be reasonable to go a different direction next year. You certainly can't just run it back. But it's one game...let's see what happens.

We've been a bottom 10 offense all year, which is hard to swallow when you think about those Utah teams Rudy was on. Utah was the #1 offense in the NBA last year, the #3 offense the year prior, and the #10 offense the year prior to that. The last time Rudy was on a Bottom 10 offense was his rookie year in Utah.

Ant and Rudy just don't work on offense. Unfortunately Ant is still a novice when it comes to pick and roll play making. He is fine at kicking out the ball. But when it comes to the nuances of pocket passes and lobs to rolling bigs, especially a big like Rudy, he's terrible. Zero synergy on offense between these two except for the occasional great screen Rudy sets. But Rudy knows he will almost never get the ball back after setting those screens. His only purpose is to help get Ant going down hill.

So we can trade Rudy to open up the middle more for Ant and KAT, but then what happens to our defense? It's like whack-a-mole.....

Yes. And this is brought up a lot in the past...will it be Rudy that goes or KAT? I feel it will be the later for the following reason (most of which have been brought up here by myself and others multiple times):

1.) TC gave up so much to get Rudy, I can't see him back tracking after one year. That would be admitting his own incompetency in evaluating the roster/fit.

2.) Selling on Rudy after this shit season would mean pennies on the dollar return. KAT would get much more.

3.) You already brought up the defense issue if we move on from Rudy. It's the reason they got him to begin with.

I feel similar to Wolvesfan, that this might be an implementation issue. Rudy/Edwards combined for the second most minutes when I look at the 2 man line ups. They were a plus 34. That's not great, but at least it was a plus. Rudy and SlowMo were team best plus 140 in 2 man line ups. Rudy's not a bad player. But he's certainly not a plug and play guy either. I feel like it's far more likely they continue to try and figure out the right combinations to keep Rudy in the fold for next year. Especially considering items #1, #2 and #3.

IMO, Rudy would have to punch a couple more people in order for TC to move on from him.

[Q-is-here]

Stars have to shine bright in big games. That didn't happen for us last night. 11 points from KAT is embarrassing. Gobert had 5 shots the whole game. Twin tower experiment is getting a rigorous field test this series. If it fails, it would certainly be reasonable to go a different direction next year. You certainly can't just run it back. But it's one game...let's see what happens.

We've been a bottom 10 offense all year, which is hard to swallow when you think about those Utah teams Rudy was on. Utah was the #1 offense in the NBA last year, the #3 offense the year prior, and the #10 offense the year prior to that. The last time Rudy was on a Bottom 10 offense was his rookie year in Utah.

Ant and Rudy just don't work on offense. Unfortunately Ant is still a novice when it comes to pick and roll play making. He is fine at kicking out the ball. But when it comes to the nuances of pocket passes and lobs to rolling bigs, especially a big like Rudy, he's terrible. Zero synergy on offense between these two except for the occasional great screen Rudy sets. But Rudy knows he will almost never get the ball back after setting those screens. His only purpose is to help get Ant going down hill.

So we can trade Rudy to open up the middle more for Ant and KAT, but then what happens to our defense? It's like whack-a-mole.....

Yes. And this is brought up a lot in the past...will it be Rudy that goes or KAT? I feel it will be the later for the following reason (most of which have been brought up here by myself and others multiple times):

1.) TC gave up so much to get Rudy, I can't see him back tracking after one year. That would be admitting his own incompetency in evaluating the roster/fit.

2.) Selling on Rudy after this shit season would mean pennies on the dollar return. KAT would get much more.

3.) You already brought up the defense issue if we move on from Rudy. It's the reason they got him to begin with.

I feel similar to Wolvesfan, that this might be an implementation issue. Rudy/Edwards combined for the second most minutes when I look at the 2 man line ups. They were a plus 34. That's not great, but at least it was a plus. Rudy and SlowMo were team best plus 140 in 2 man line ups. Rudy's not a bad player. But he's certainly not a plug and play guy either. I feel like it's far more likely they continue to try and figure out the right combinations to keep Rudy in the fold for next year. Especially considering items #1, #2 and #3.

IMO, Rudy would have to punch a couple more people in order for TC to move on from him.

Oops, my prior response didn't post...

Yeah, it's a real dilemma for the front office. And they may decide to run the whole thing back next season and give the Rudy/KAT combination one more chance before shifting to a purely Ant/Jaden focused rebuild and timeline.

The good news is that in Ant's first three seasons, he's played multiple elimination/must-win type play-n games and is now in the middle of his second playoff series. So insofar as the Rudy trade and Kyle Anderson signing helped keep this team competitive despite KAT's injury, we are at least playing meaningful games in April. I hope that is good for his long-term development.