Wolves at Mavs GDT

[Q-is-here]

Kyrie was really good

Yeah, not sure how much better we could have defended him and Doncic. Those two are just ridiculous shot-makers. That's the kind of game where we just needed to weather the storm defensively and then make some shots. Once again, our offense let us down. This time it was poor execution late and too many missed 3s.

[Coolbreeze44]

Kyrie was really good

Yeah, not sure how much better we could have defended him and Doncic. Those two are just ridiculous shot-makers. That's the kind of game where we just needed to weather the storm defensively and then make some shots. Once again, our offense let us down. This time it was too many missed 3s.

Missed 3's

Missed FT's

Foul Trouble

Ball Security, especially Rudy

[Q-is-here]

Chris Finch: "Bad offense, really. A couple turnovers that cost us, one on the rebound, one on the roll. But some rushed shots. I gotta do a better job. I gotta get the ball into Mike’s hands at that point in time like I’d been doing all season. But really good game."

My bold....and herein lies the problem with our offense. Neither of our star scorers can really be trusted to run an efficient half court set. We aren't leading the West without KAT and Ant, but damn are we too reliant on the likes of Mike Conley, Kyle Anderson, and now Jordan McLaughlin to handle the ball and make sure good decisions are made with it because neither of our two star scorers are good decision makers.

[Lipoli390]

Chris Finch: "Bad offense, really. A couple turnovers that cost us, one on the rebound, one on the roll. But some rushed shots. I gotta do a better job. I gotta get the ball into Mike’s hands at that point in time like I’d been doing all season. But really good game."

My bold....and herein lies the problem with our offense. Neither of our star scorers can really be trusted to run an efficient half court set. We aren't leading the West without KAT and Ant, but damn are we too reliant on the likes of Mike Conley, Kyle Anderson, and now Jordan McLaughlin to handle the ball and make sure good decisions are made with it because neither of our two star scorers are good decision makers.

That’s true, Q. We need to be able to trust our best offensive player with the ball in the half-court. That guy is Edwards. I just think Ant is a year or two away from being reliable with the ball.

[Lipoli390]

Ant did everything he could tonight with 36 points and 10 rebounds. KAT gave us 24 points, but his five fouls limited him to 27 minutes. We needed 37 minutes and 30 points from him tonight. Of course, we still needed more than six more points from KAT. We ended up with only 108 points. That’s not enough to win in the NBA today.

We had only three players with double-digit scoring totals - Ant, KAT and Naz. That’s not going to get it done. We only had two more turnovers than Dallas, so that wasn’t the main thing tonight. Again, it was the lack of scoring from players other than Ant, KAT and Naz. Those are the only three players on our entire 14-man roster we can rely on to put up points.

I’ll add that you can’t sugar-coat Jaden hitting only 1 of 10 FG attempts and getting only 3 rebounds in 37 minutes. I still love his talent, but he’s far from being what we need him to be to make this work and I’m troubled by his lack of progress.

Rudy’s bad hands, poor free-throw shooting, limited offensive range, overall lack of toughness come with the territory. He still grabbed 17 rebounds tonight. He is what he is and he’s not going anywhere. So in spite of Rudy’s weaknesses, we need to figure out a way to put up more points. Getting 36 points from Edwards, but still scoring only 108 points against a team like Dallas that isn’t particularly good defensively doesn’t bode well for this team’s championship aspirations.

[Jester1534]

It’s 2:20 in the morning CST time


I have finally caught up on my shots for every time Luka complained.

If you’re wondering by my criteria I had 37 times during the game that I noticed.

PS I only had one glass of bourbon but it’s crazy how much that guy bitches. I thought Ant throwing his hand up in the air was bad.

[FNG]

This loss doesn't bother me too much. We rebounded well and protected the ball... we're going to win most of the games in which we do these two things. We ran into two great scorers at their best, and we just didn't make enough shots...we're not going to win many games when our starting SF goes 1-10 with only 3 rebounds. Nice to see Rudy dominate the boards, but his sloppy passes at key moments really hurt us.

Now we need to be at our best to beat a tough Orlando team that is 13-4 at home, or be at risk to lose 3 in a row after a visit to Boston.

[thedoper]

We need more shooting. Im ready to trade Anderson.

What about 1-5 NAW and 1-10 Jaden?

It was more a compliment to Anderson's talent in that I think we can get something back of value. Naw Im not so sure and Jaden wont be traded.

[Coolbreeze44]

Jaden is at 51.4/35.1 including last night's abysmal showing - He's not the problem offensively. Yeah he had a terrible night, it happens.

[FNG]

Jaden is at 51.4/35.1 including last night's abysmal showing - He's not the problem offensively. Yeah he had a terrible night, it happens.

I agree that Jaden is not a big problem offensively, and with what he provides every night on defense, he is about as valuable a 5th starter as any player in the league. I liken him to Herbert Jones, who also doesn't rebound or score very much, but draws the toughest defensive assignment every night, and shoots efficiently when he does shoot. Yeah, Jaden hurt us last night, but it was far from a typical night for him. And I really loved his defense in the 4th quarter.