20 years (and 1 day) later- Finals Game 1 GDT

[Coolbreeze44]

Trying to not get so down but we can't look to the Nuggets series. KAT can revert to being a dumbass, Rudys glass hands can cost us, ANT can throw up terrible shots rather than driving to the hoop, etc. etc.

It's a whole new series, hopefully they pull their heads out of their asses soon. So many stupid plays

This post makes me feel better for some reason. I think you're absolutely right. Just because we beat the Nuggets doesn't mean that all of our bugaboos have vanished. I though we played stupid, careless, and sloppy. hopefully it's due to coming off a draining series, but all of a sudden we don't have home court anymore. The pressure ramps up on Friday.

[Monster]

This felt like a game where both teams were feeling each other out. Dallas ended up winning but I'm not exactly too concerned with losing home court advantage. It's less than ideal to lose game one and it was a winnable game so it's disappointing they didn't get it. It's just one game I'm looking forward to game 2.

[Q-is-here]

This felt like a game where both teams were feeling each other out. Dallas ended up winning but I'm not exactly too concerned with losing home court advantage. It's less than ideal to lose game one and it was a winnable game so it's disappointing they didn't get it. It's just one game I'm looking forward to game 2.

Good perspective Monster.

If there is one thing we learned from the series against Denver, this is likely just the first chapter of a long novel. Obviously the odds now favor the Mavs, but it isn't overwhelming odds and we know how resilient the Wolves have been this season. Onto the next game.

[Porckchop]

The game was still winnable at the end despite poor play, tired legs and some questionable calls.

What worries me is if they’re already tired there isn’t exactly a lot of recovery time within a 7 game series. Ant specifically looks affected and he’s 12-40 fg his last two games. This team won’t survive an extended shooting slump from him. It’s not only affecting his jumper it’s made him less aggressive going to the rim.

[kekgeek]

The game was still winnable at the end despite poor play, tired legs and some questionable calls.

What worries me is if they’re already tired there isn’t exactly a lot of recovery time within a 7 game series. Ant specifically looks affected and he’s 12-40 fg his last two games. This team won’t survive an extended shooting slump from him. It’s not only affecting his jumper it’s made him less aggressive going to the rim.

Ya Ant has not scored 20 points in 4 of the last 6 games. Seems like he’s wearing down

[FNG]

After 7 mostly blowouts against Denver, we finally got a close game with some drama. Unfortunately we ended up on the losing side. I didn't like the outcome, but I found the game very entertaining and well-played. I'm really looking forward to the next 6 games (and I think there will be 6 more).

News flash: I'm not a professional athlete. So I'm not able to get into their heads. So I fully admit I don't understand the whole "poke the bear" narrative that Charles, Kyrie and others are using to explain why Kyrie so badly outplayed Ant last night. To me, Ant did nothing wrong when he said "I got Kyrie" after Game 7. But I guess in the head of a professional athlete that becomes a motivational event that swings the outcome of the game. Ant needs to be very vocal today praising Kyrie, or he may get outplayed again.

But the real story last night was unfortunately a continuing story. Two words: Naz Reid. (Warning for those who prefer to ignore +/- stats: turn away from this post now). Naz is a fan favorite and a very good offensive player, but we are getting badly outscored almost every time he's on the court because of his horrible defense. Last night he was a team-worst -10, and for those who need a somewhat larger sample size, his on/off stat for the entire post-season is a very bad -16.2. Naz is a scoring option off the bench and Finchie has to play him to give Rudy and KAT a blow. But he is who we thought he was, and we are almost always going to be outscored when this classic one-way player is on the court. Finchie needs to play him, but I don't think we can withstand 24 minutes of his turnstile defense.

But what I didn't anticipate was how consistently badly we would be outscored in this postseason with NAW on the court. He is even worse in on/off than Naz in the offseason with a disastrous -23.2, and I think that is why Finchie limited his minutes to only 16 last night (compared to 23.4 during the regular season). But he was a -5 in those minutes, despite looking very effective to me guarding Kyrie. NAW's problem this offseason is the opposite of Naz...he's not providing the offense he provided during the regular season, because he's not hitting his threes. He was 0 for 4 again last night, and he has missed his last 9. But while I think Finchie needs to limit Naz's minutes to 12-15, he needs to play NAW more and hope (expect?) he progresses to his 3-point shooting mean. We're going to need his defense on Kyrie to keep Ant fresh.

The other continuing factor in last night's game was how Lively continues to badly outplay starting center Gafford. He's done it the entire postseason. Kidd was at least smart enough to give his reserve center more minutes than his starter. We need to hope though that he continues to start Gafford and play him a lot.

The Denver series was dull despite going 7 games. I think this one is going to be a barnburner. It's gonna be fun!



Postscript: We probably haven't talked enough about the bad offensive goaltending call on KAT on a play that would have tied the game. When I was watching live, I said "Crap, that's goaltending". But the replay to me clearly showed the ball was not in the cylinder. I was stunned when our challenge was not successful. That was a critical bad call. I don't think the 2-minute report is out yet, but I expect to see this on it.

[FNG]

The game was still winnable at the end despite poor play, tired legs and some questionable calls.

What worries me is if they’re already tired there isn’t exactly a lot of recovery time within a 7 game series. Ant specifically looks affected and he’s 12-40 fg his last two games. This team won’t survive an extended shooting slump from him. It’s not only affecting his jumper it’s made him less aggressive going to the rim.

Ya Ant has not scored 20 points in 4 of the last 6 games. Seems like he’s wearing down

I'm a little worried about that too, kek, but I think we have to give some credit to Jones Jr. I was really impressed with his defense last night. But Dallas's rim-protecting centers also might have been in Ant's head last night. I can only remember him trying to get to the basket once or twice- he mostly relied on jump shots. Dallas has two good defensive centers, but we need Ant to challenge them more at the rim.

[kekgeek]

The game was still winnable at the end despite poor play, tired legs and some questionable calls.

What worries me is if they’re already tired there isn’t exactly a lot of recovery time within a 7 game series. Ant specifically looks affected and he’s 12-40 fg his last two games. This team won’t survive an extended shooting slump from him. It’s not only affecting his jumper it’s made him less aggressive going to the rim.

Ya Ant has not scored 20 points in 4 of the last 6 games. Seems like he’s wearing down

I'm a little worried about that too, kek, but I think we have to give some credit to Jones Jr. I was really impressed with his defense last night. But Dallas's rim-protecting centers also might have been in Ant's head last night. I can only remember him trying to get to the basket once or twice- he mostly relied on jump shots. Dallas has two good defensive centers, but we need Ant to challenge them more at the rim.

I get that FNG. It’s nuts to be disappointed in a guy who had 19/11/8. He just looked gassed where they didn’t even run offense though him late because he was too tired. Also he only attempted one non jumper all game. He’s young, it’s one game, I trust ant to rebound. The title is there for the taking and I don’t want to ruin this opportunity

[Lipoli390]

After 7 mostly blowouts against Denver, we finally got a close game with some drama. Unfortunately we ended up on the losing side. I didn't like the outcome, but I found the game very entertaining and well-played. I'm really looking forward to the next 6 games (and I think there will be 6 more).

News flash: I'm not a professional athlete. So I'm not able to get into their heads. So I fully admit I don't understand the whole "poke the bear" narrative that Charles, Kyrie and others are using to explain why Kyrie so badly outplayed Ant last night. To me, Ant did nothing wrong when he said "I got Kyrie" after Game 7. But I guess in the head of a professional athlete that becomes a motivational event that swings the outcome of the game. Ant needs to be very vocal today praising Kyrie, or he may get outplayed again.

But the real story last night was unfortunately a continuing story. Two words: Naz Reid. (Warning for those who prefer to ignore +/- stats: turn away from this post now). Naz is a fan favorite and a very good offensive player, but we are getting badly outscored almost every time he's on the court because of his horrible defense. Last night he was a team-worst -10, and for those who need a somewhat larger sample size, his on/off stat for the entire post-season is a very bad -16.2. Naz is a scoring option off the bench and Finchie has to play him to give Rudy and KAT a blow. But he is who we thought he was, and we are almost always going to be outscored when this classic one-way player is on the court. Finchie needs to play him, but I don't think we can withstand 24 minutes of his turnstile defense.

But what I didn't anticipate was how consistently badly we would be outscored in this postseason with NAW on the court. He is even worse in on/off than Naz in the offseason with a disastrous -23.2, and I think that is why Finchie limited his minutes to only 16 last night (compared to 23.4 during the regular season). But he was a -5 in those minutes, despite looking very effective to me guarding Kyrie. NAW's problem this offseason is the opposite of Naz...he's not providing the offense he provided during the regular season, because he's not hitting his threes. He was 0 for 4 again last night, and he has missed his last 9. But while I think Finchie needs to limit Naz's minutes to 12-15, he needs to play NAW more and hope (expect?) he progresses to his 3-point shooting mean. We're going to need his defense on Kyrie to keep Ant fresh.

The other continuing factor in last night's game was how Lively continues to badly outplay starting center Gafford. He's done it the entire postseason. Kidd was at least smart enough to give his reserve center more minutes than his starter. We need to hope though that he continues to start Gafford and play him a lot.

The Denver series was dull despite going 7 games. I think this one is going to be a barnburner. It's gonna be fun!



Postscript: We probably haven't talked enough about the bad offensive goaltending call on KAT on a play that would have tied the game. When I was watching live, I said "Crap, that's goaltending". But the replay to me clearly showed the ball was not in the cylinder. I was stunned when our challenge was not successful. That was a critical bad call. I don't think the 2-minute report is out yet, but I expect to see this on it.

Glad you raised this, FNG. When I saw the replay on the big screen I noticed the ball was clearly outside the cylinder and I was convinced the call would be overturned. I’m still shocked that it wasn’t. I continue to grow more and more suspicious of NBA officiating. I never bought the notion that Tim Donaghy was a complete anomaly among NBA officials and I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist. David Stern was obviously determined to avoid any inquiry to avoid a more widespread scandal that could have seriously damaged the NBA brand, which relies on at least the appearance of integrity. David Stern was a force of nature with immense power - hence his ability to sweep or keep things under the rug that would otherwise tend to be exposed. But history tells us that hidden corruption will fester and spread, becoming more widespread and insidious. I don’t think that every NBA official is involved in betting on games, but I’m convinced that some are. Yet, it’s not just gambling. The Tim Donaghy documentary exposes incidents of NBA officials deliberating attempting to impact outcomes via vendettas against for favoritism towards individual players and/or teams.

Last night’s obviously skewed officiating can’t be ignored or explained away as happenstance. The fact that Kyrie and Luka each had more foul shots than Ant and KAT combined it telling. That disparity can be explained in part by a lack of aggressiveness by Ant going to the hole but it was more than that. The juxtaposition of touch calls on Luka and non-calls on Ant and KAT was unacceptable. Something troubling was going on, especially with official #8. When he stepped up to the microphone on the challenge to the foul call on Mike Conley and explained the decision to uphold the call by describing Conley’s action as a “subtle but effective push in the back” it sounded like a guy going out of his way to cover for what he knew was a night’s worth of highly questionable officiating. His explanation struck me as gratuitous and defensive.

The Wolves still could and should have won the game last night in spite of the highly questionable officiating. But no team should have to overcome officiating as obviously skewed as the officiating we saw last night. Ultimately the NBA won’t be able to survive long-term if the League fails to squarely address the festering problem that David Stern swept under the rug 17 years ago.

[FNG]

Ya Ant has not scored 20 points in 4 of the last 6 games. Seems like he’s wearing down

I'm a little worried about that too, kek, but I think we have to give some credit to Jones Jr. I was really impressed with his defense last night. But Dallas's rim-protecting centers also might have been in Ant's head last night. I can only remember him trying to get to the basket once or twice- he mostly relied on jump shots. Dallas has two good defensive centers, but we need Ant to challenge them more at the rim.

I get that FNG. It’s nuts to be disappointed in a guy who had 19/11/8. He just looked gassed where they didn’t even run offense though him late because he was too tired. Also he only attempted one non jumper all game. He’s young, it’s one game, I trust ant to rebound. The title is there for the taking and I don’t want to ruin this opportunity

To your point, I think 9 of those rebounds and 5 of those assists were in the first half- more evidence that he ran out of gas. But Ant is a decade younger than Kyrie. Dallas fans better not count on Kyrie outworking Ant all series. I think the younger legs will prevail with 6 more games only 2 days apart.