Game Report - Game 1 v Dallas

[Lipoli390]

I’ll be brief here. It’s hard to find a lot of hope after losing game 1 in front of a highly energized capacity crowd. Explaining the loss is easy. The Mavs’ two best players (Luke & Kyrie) dramatically outplayed our two best (Ant & KAT). Yet, we still only lost by 3 points because their rest of our team is better than the rest of their team. I don’t know what’s wrong with Ant other than to echo what others have said - i.e., that he looks tired, maybe even hurt or sick. Yet, in spite of his poor shooting, he had 11 rebounds and 8 assists while working hard on the defensive end. What I find totally inexcusable last night, beyond the horrifically biased officiating, is the play of KAT. After seemingly redeeming himself in the prior round, he put up a clunker last night that was reminiscent of the many prior KAT playoff clunkers that earned him the reputation many of us believed he had swept aside in the Denver series. KAT’s 6 for 20 FG shooting with only 2 trips to the line last night is inexcusable. Part of having only 2 fouls shots was the biased officiating, so I’ll overlook that for now. But 30% FG shooting by a PF whose strength is shooting is unacceptable. Hitting just one more 3-point attempt would have put his 3-point average last night at 33% - still subpar but enough to wipe out the 3-point margin of victory. That one extra 3 plus only one more 2-pointer would have been enough to win the game and KAT’s FG percentage still would have been a below par 40%. KAT didn’t make up for his pathetic shooting in any other department, pulling down only 7 rebounds. I’m not worried about our defense, which was plenty good to win last night. But we have to score more than 105 points if we expect to win. To do that, KAT has to play at a level that merits his all-star status. He looked like a bench player last night.

Looking ahead, we should accept that we’re not going to stop Luka and Kyrie. I don’t know how anyone could have defended Luka better than Jaden did last night. Luke was just being Luka. He’s the best shot-maker in the NBA. Kyrie is obviously well rested and energized after resting most of the season. So we should expect him to continue playing at the superstar level from his prime that we saw last night. And maybe Ant will continue to look tired or even hurt as he’s looked the last two games. But the Wolves can still win this series if KAT plays up to his capabilities. Jaden may not score 20+ per game, but his shot is back so I see him at least scoring in the teens. NAZ will continue to do what he does. I would think that NAW’s shots will start to drop after two successive poor shooting performances from him. Ant’s shooting won’t get worse than it’s been the last couple games and will probably be at least a little better.

Another thought on Ant. Dallas has clearly designed its defense to deal with Ant as the Wolves’ primary ballhandler as they shut down his driving lanes, forcing him to rely on perimeter shots and to pass the ball - hence his 8 assists. I think we’re going to have to rely more on Conley and perhaps use Monte Morris more as primary ballhandler to open up scoring opportunities for Ant.

Finally, as I noted several times in the game thread, the antics of Wendell Moore, Clark and Miller are absolutely disgusting. The Wolves were in a dog fight and during every single break Moore was laughing and joking around as if he were at a party. He was slapping teammates with his towel, walking around like he didn’t have a care in the world. He continued his smiling and laughing during game action as well. He is clearly the ring leader and instigator, but Clark and Miller (especially Clark) are willing and consistent participants. Last night I saw Moore’s cancerous conduct spread to Monte Morris and even Naz Reid. Miller was better last night and seemed to be trying to pay more attention to the coach in the huddle as Moore carried on with his antics. Interestingly, Josh Minott rarely joins in the frivolity and the few times he has it has been very brief and obviously reluctant even though he and Moore are reputedly friends. That’s why I like Josh. Meanwhile, it’s clear that none of the other Wolves players want to have anything to do with Moore. They completely (and appropriately) ignore him. That includes other bench players like JMac who rarely play.

We’ve all speculated about what the Wolves will do this offseason and we will speculate even more when the Wolves’ post season is over. But right now, the only move that I consider absolutely essential is getting rid of Wendell Moore. He’s a cancer that needs to be removed. I’m also thinking we should move Miller and Clark if we can get some decent assets in return. I want next season’s bench to be populated exclusively by serious veterans, maybe with a young guy or two like Minott who show competitive fire and support for their teammates.

That’s it for my game report. Great crowd. Great performance by Jaden McDaniels. Terrific performance by Naz Reid. Positive impact performance by Rudy. Laudable effort from Ant as he fought through obvious fatigue and soreness to garner 11 rebounds and dish out 8 assists along with hitting 5 of 11 three-point attempts. Another poor offensive performance by NAW. A subpar performance by Mike Conley but the effort was there. Unacceptably horrible performance by KAT. Another disgusting display of “I don’t give a shit” frivolity from Moore and his “I’m must happy to be here” posse.

[AbeVigodaLive]

"Ouch. That hurts."

- Karl Anthony Towns

______________________

It's a make-or-miss league. Many have begged Towns to shoot more open three pointers. He simply didn't make them last night. I don't think he forced too many like he did in Game 4 vs. Denver. He was open, he took the shots. Only a couple didn't have a chance to go in. More often than not... he'll hit about 50% of them. Still... it's fine to rip that part of his game. He shot poorly. No way around it.

But, he also didn't do the silly careless things that he's done so many times before. In fact, he's only had 15 TOs in the past 10 playoff games... and only one yesterday. He's effectively cut his TO rate in half.

It seemed like he had more assists than two... probably because they were "loud" assists for Gobert dunks. I also didn't think he was terrible on defense, although there were occasions where he made mistakes, especially one where he didn't box out Lively on a putback slam.

I think there was a lot slightly off with the Timberwolves last night. I thought Conley had a terrible game. I thought NAW was borderline unplayable for the 2nd straight game (which included bad shot selection). And if we're ripping bigs who don't rebound... Towns was at about his season average (7 vs. 8.3). Gobert also had 7... compared to 12.9 during the season. Gobert also noted that he needs to do better rebounding.

Mike Conley had an interesting quote about the Wolves playing drop coverage a lot more than what was in the game plan. At first blush, I put the blame on that on Gobert as well... but I don't know for sure.

So yes... a bad loss. And yes... a subpar Towns game. But I don't think he was startingly worse than several of his teammates including Anthony Edwards who looked gassed and didn't attack much at all.

[Lipoli390]

Good observations, Abe. NAW was terrible and Conley did not play well. And yes, hard to give Rudy a pass on only 7 rebounds when that, along with defense, is his calling card. I also agree that KAT did not do dumb things last night and he played pretty well defensively. My only point is that, in what you accurately described as a “make or miss League” KAT has to make his shots. That doesn’t mean he needs to always hit over 50% of his FGs or over 37% of his threes. But I can’t give him a pass on hitting only 30% of his FGs in a big game when his scoring was so desperately needed. Just as Rudy’s calling cards are defense and rebounding, KAT’s calling card is shooting/scoring. Part of hitting open shots like the many he missed last night, is concentration and will. I’ll add that there were a number of times when he hesitated instead of putting up a shot in a one-on-one situation against a shorter defender. A player of KAT’s caliber offensively should never hesitate when guarded one-on-one by an inferior player.

So while I acknowledge and agree with your points, I’m still putting last night’s loss primarily on KAT. Ant obviously had tired legs but still hit 5 of 12 threes while grabbing 11 rebounds and dishing out 8 assists. And he had to guard Kyrie. Yet KAT had only 7 rebounds and 2 assists. That failure to box out Lively was totally unforgivable in such a big moment of a big game. As everyone on this Board knows, I’ve been a big KAT fan and defender over the years. But yet even I feel compelled to call him out singularly for letting this team down in a crucial game last night. We’ll see if he can make up for it the rest of the series. If he does, the Wolves should win the series. We are the better team in my view, but not by much.

[rapsuperstar31]

"Ouch. That hurts."

- Karl Anthony Towns

______________________

It's a make-or-miss league. Many have begged Towns to shoot more open three pointers. He simply didn't make them last night. I don't think he forced too many like he did in Game 4 vs. Denver. He was open, he took the shots. Only a couple didn't have a chance to go in. More often than not... he'll hit about 50% of them. Still... it's fine to rip that part of his game. He shot poorly. No way around it.

But, he also didn't do the silly careless things that he's done so many times before. In fact, he's only had 15 TOs in the past 10 playoff games... and only one yesterday. He's effectively cut his TO rate in half.

It seemed like he had more assists than two... probably because they were "loud" assists for Gobert dunks. I also didn't think he was terrible on defense, although there were occasions where he made mistakes, especially one where he didn't box out Lively on a putback slam.

I think there was a lot slightly off with the Timberwolves last night. I thought Conley had a terrible game. I thought NAW was borderline unplayable for the 2nd straight game (which included bad shot selection). And if we're ripping bigs who don't rebound... Towns was at about his season average (7 vs. 8.3). Gobert also had 7... compared to 12.9 during the season. Gobert also noted that he needs to do better rebounding.

Mike Conley had an interesting quote about the Wolves playing drop coverage a lot more than what was in the game plan. At first blush, I put the blame on that on Gobert as well... but I don't know for sure.

So yes... a bad loss. And yes... a subpar Towns game. But I don't think he was startingly worse than several of his teammates including Anthony Edwards who looked gassed and didn't attack much at all.

Yes despite everything that happened in the game, Towns, Ant and NAW all had a few 3's that went in and out, while Dallas had several shots that bounced around the rim and ended up going in.

[Q-is-here]

....don't forget the missed FTAs too by Conley and Reid. Mike was 1-4 from the line. I mean, that's just inexcusable! Reid was 2-4. If Mike and Naz go 3-4 each, voila!, tie ball game!

I definitely think tired legs and a mental hangover from the Denver win played a part. It had to, right?

Here's a fun fact that may give us some solace: Teams that win Game 7 in the prior series have a win percentage of 39% in Game 1 of the following series. So the Wolves are part of the 61% of teams that lose Game 1 after winning a 7-game series. The fact we kept it so close and a couple unlucky bounces/calls put Dallas in the win column instead of us should be encouraging.

Dallas deserves credit for putting OKC away in 6 games. It paid off for them with the extra day of rest.

And finally, Dallas played three of their starters 40 minutes or more. Minnesota had one starter (Ant) play that much. I think the hope is that we will wear them down as the series progresses.