Suns at Wolves R1G1

[60WinTim]

I know we acknowledge Rudy a ton already, but he was damn good. And while he is not a scorer, his contributions on the offensive end are very impactful with his screens, ball movement, rebounding, and pressure he puts on an opposing team just by being down low. And he works just as hard on the offensive end as he does on the defensive end.

[davemang]

I know we acknowledge Rudy a ton already, but he was damn good. And while he is not a scorer, his contributions on the offensive end are very impactful with his screens, ball movement, rebounding, and pressure he puts on an opposing team just by being down low. And he works just as hard on the offensive end as he does on the defensive end.

I think seeing how hard he works on the offensive end (runs the floor like crazy too on fastbreaks) makes it a bit easier to live with the occasional bad possession with him fumbling the ball or making some ugly looking post moves. He earns a post up or two a game to let him try and cook someone and yam it on them. The amount of fouls he draws (even if it’s a game where he’s missing them) puts a lot of pressure on the front court by putting them in foul trouble and/or bonus earlier than they’d like too.

[Wolvesfan21]

Just checked the box score. Couple thoughts.

Rebounding, rebounding, rebounding.

We outrebounded them 52 to 28. Jesus Christ. That is size and effort.

Rudy had more rebounds than Nurk, KD, Beal, and Booker combined.

Rudy had 6 offensive boards. The Suns had only 3 as a team.

The problem of this matchup is defending all three of these scorers, but the advantage for us is if we can use our size on both ends, and we definitely did tonight on the glass.

Shooting efficiency and ball movement.


We nearly went 50-40-90 as a team. Conley had a really rough night. Nearly everybody else shot over 50% from the field. Some of that was just getting a bit of luck. But we also had 26 assists to their 16. That shows our guys were trusting each other, and as long as we don't turn it over too much, that leads to higher-percentage shots. Paid off big time tonight.

Defensive intensity


There were a couple defensive breakdowns, but for the most part, we were REALLY locked in defensively. They actually got one more steal than us, but that feels misleading having watched the game. It felt like we contested almost everything and forced them into settling for tough shots. KD was KD, but we didn't let him go off in the 4th, and we held Booker to a bad shooting night and kept Beal in check too. Allen, who's killed us in the past, only got off 3 shots and missed them all. That's what we need.

Rebounding was huge. First make them take a tough shot, second objective, get the board. We did both. I remember the Memphis series. We kept getting outboarded by like 10 a game. We just couldn't do the nasty shit needed to win.