FNG wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 9:17 am
I like both of Abe's threads. Lots of good points in both, and clear evidence that Vegas has this one correct with having the series basically a tossup.
A lot of angst about how poorly we play against the Suns, and fear about their stellar 3-point shooting. But let's not lose sight of the fact that while the Suns made a very impressive 38.2% of their 3's this season, do you know who was better? Yep, your Wolves...at 38.7% And that despite missing their most reliable 3-point shooter much of the second half of the season. Yes, the Wolves need to respect and fear the Suns' 3-point shooting. But the Suns need to fear ours just as much, if not more.
I know we can't completely ignore our 0-3 against the Suns this season...it's the reason the #3 seed isn't favored in this series. But we have home court advantage, and only one of the three losses was at home. And while a blackout thankfully prevented me from watching this disaster, I suspect that the Suns really wanted to win this one more than we did. The Suns were eager to stay out of the play in tournament, and must have been much more aggressive than we were Sunday. Case in point: every Suns starter except Nurkic had double digit shot attempts, while not one T-Wolf did. That can't happen.
Does anyone think there will be games in this 7-game series where both Towns and Ant have fewer than 10 shot attempts? No chance. #3 seeds should not have to be challenged like this in the first round, but this will be a big challenge. But home court advantage will prevail. Wolves in 7.
It hard to get shot attempts up when you simply turn it over. The Suns are a strange team. Did they sleep walk through much of the season? I haven't watched any of the non Suns-Wolves games, just seen highlights from the other Suns games. Seen them lose by double digits a lot. Very much like a roller coaster with there ups and downs.
Though in the end I think they should be favored based on beating the Wolves easily all 3 times and they have a legit proven 3 man scoring punch that is hard and close to impossible to stop. You got to just make them shoot tough shots and board the ball. They had too many good looks against the Wolves in all 3 games. It wasn't like the Chicago game where whats his name just got super hot and was hitting tough ones.
A few days after throttling the Wolves for the 2nd time... and less than a week before destroying the Wolves for the 3rd time... Phoenix was down 35 - 4 to the Clippers in the 1st quarter.
I feel like they are much better then their record like you say. Just taking nights off for whatever reason during the regular season.
