A Mulligan of a Mulligan - Warriors at Wolves GDT

[AussieWolf3]

All pretty irrelevant to be honest.... This team is dire right now

[FNG]

Unfortunately, I'm not sure tomorrow will be much better. Might have to look to the next game where the team gets the hell out of here and goes to Dallas (which is freezing, btw!).

I don't know if this what you mean by this but I can't help to wonder if current events aren't playing a role in the rather extreme dip in performance over the last 5 games, which have all been in Minneapolis (right?)

I know no one wants to give em that kind of excuse but the circumstances are rather extreme- whatever your politics are.

I'm not discussing the details of what's going just commenting that it may be affecting the players.... Idk

That is exactly what I was suggesting.

I wasn't there tonight, but it certainly seemed like the crowd was impacted by what's going on in the city...maybe Lip can weigh in if he was there. And a quiet crowd might have an impact of our energy level. But I guess I don't know how much a team of young multi-millionaires who didn't grow up in town care about some middle class liberals getting gunned down on the streets in Minneapolis. It's not their world...they limo from the arena to their palaces or penthouse apartments, and don't have much connection to what's happening in town. And the way they talk about their off time, it's all about babies and video games...I wonder how many of our guys spend much time with a newspaper or a news feed. I recognize that is quite judgmental of me, but it's what I think...their world is light years away from all of ours.

(this is Timberwolves related, so I hope it doesn't run afoul of the "no politics" rule.)

[rapsuperstar31]

I wasn't able to watch but this can't be true

Ha, you're lucky Aussie, but the C I gave Bones was my highest grade. He ran the offense well with 3 assists and no turnovers, and wasn't an embarrassment on defense. Makes sense that he was the only player of the 13 who played who had a positive +/-.

Roll this around in your head for awhile...T-Wolves not named Julius or Bones had 7 assists and 24 turnovers...7 and 24! You can't win when you have 11 players with more than a 3 to 1 turnover to assist ratio!

Fair enough.
The box score indicates a different story but obviously can be quite noisy.

Based on following the play by play and obviously looking at the box score my impression is that the only person capable of doing anything on offense was Ant. The 11 rebounds also indicates a fairly good level of compete. All of that makes it hard for me to believe he wasn't the best player for the wolves but obviously that moot given the horrendous nature of the loss and of course it's a fools errand trying to divine much for the box score

Ant and Donte were excellent to close out the 2nd quarter getting it down to a one point game, but that was about it. Both Ant and Donte cooled off shooting in the 3rd quarter where the game got away again. I think Ant was 8-10 at the half, and Donte was 6-9. Randle never showed an ounce of effort in this one. Naz rebounded the ball, but you could tell his head wasn't in the game. Jaden played defense, but his head wasn't in it either. It's certainly possible what has transpired in Minneapolis has had an effect. Something is certainly wrong since after the San Antonio loss.

[FNG]

Fair enough.
The box score indicates a different story but obviously can be quite noisy.

Based on following the play by play and obviously looking at the box score my impression is that the only person capable of doing anything on offense was Ant. The 11 rebounds also indicates a fairly good level of compete. All of that makes it hard for me to believe he wasn't the best player for the wolves but obviously that moot given the horrendous nature of the loss and of course it's a fools errand trying to divine much for the box score

Just one man's opinion. Aussie, but I think the box score tells a lot. A turnover is one of the most important stats in a box score I think, because it means a score you didn't get plus often a score the other team did get...and Ant and Donte had 13 of them tonight! And it was really sad for me to see guys like Podziemski and Will Richard light up Ant...he's good enough to defend these guys, but not if he doesn't care. And Donte always cares, but sometimes he takes risks on defense that lead to easy buckets. Golden State didn't shoot or rebound well, but they protected the ball and were successful with their handsy defense.

I think it can as well, but it is noisy.

It seems we're weighing things differently as you see the turnovers as the most telling stat about who played well.

I'm suggesting that one player was responsible for 37% of the points (on efficient shooting) and a 20% of the rebounds. That's pretty significant in my opinion, granted so is 33% of the TOs

All true, but defense doesn't show up in the box. It was clear to me that the Warriors were featuring on offense whomever Ant was "guarding".

[AbeVigodaLive]

Abe's "I'm not trying to be repetitive, but there certainly seems to be some legit trends in this game" DVR Review:

- Rough start. Loose ball bounces out near Randle's feet near the arc. He's the closest player to the ball. But he stands there while 37-year-old Steph Curry dives on the floor. Curry gets the ball... three pointer on the other end for the Warriors.

- A lot of turnovers.

- Four Wolves players... one Warriors player (a guard... maybe Melton?) as the Warriors miss a three pointer. FOUR Wolves player vs. ONE Warriors player... the Wolves commit the foul.

- More turnovers.

- Wolves down 30 - 38... Podz tips the inbounds pass. Even though Bones is closer to the ball... Podz dives for the ball as Bones stands there. Podz gets the ball.

- Mike Conley wide open for three. Nope. He passes it for a worse shot that Divencenzo passes up to make another TO.

- Conley is just a semi-warm body out there. He now has 9 points in his last 92 minutes on the court. (5 losses). Is Kevin Ollie available? WTF.

- You all know how I feel about Rob Dillingham. But he had moments where he brought energy off the bench last year. That's what you need from the bench. ENERGY! The starters have none in this game. NONE.

- 33 - 42. There's a deflection. Once again, Julus Randle is closest to the ball. Reid is right there, too. Nope. The Warriors player is the only one who hits the deck. He gets the ball. Turnover #15 for Minnesota.

- Edwards hits a three and seems to say "I aint passing the ball no more." In all honesty, maybe a good plan. Edwards has about 6 TOs already in this one.

- Start of the 2nd half seems a lot like the start of the 1st to carry on the theme of this post.

- 53 - 64... loose ball yet again. For the 1st time... Randle is the guy on the ground. Guess what happens? You'll never fucking believe what happens... I swear you won't fucking believe it!!!!!! Yes. Randle gets the ball and the Wolves get an easy bucket out of it on the other end.

- Well, that was fleeting... Curry misses a three on the other end with the score now 55 - 64. AGAIN, the Wolves have 4 players with inside position for the rebound. The Warriors have only one guy crashing. The Wolves foul that one guy. Again.

- The Wolves play tomorrow. And then 4 times in 5 days. And yet... Finch is still going with a 6-man lineup. (I'm not counting Conley or Bones because it's honestly like they're not even on the court.) I like Finch and I'm not in the camp to fire him. BUT... this bench thing is weird at this point. There's no reason to stick with the starters in this game this long unless...

... Finch is punishing the starters.
... He's pouting and trying to prove a point to Tim Connelly about the obvious thin bench this team has.
... He fell asleep and Nori was out getting popcorn so nobody woke him.

- Almost the entire 2nd half has been one Wolves player after another taking turns going bully ball iso from top of the key. It has NOT been all that effective. LOL.

- I don't have words for how Randle and McDaniels are playing in this game other than "meh" seems to fit.

- Beringer playing with energy. Ahem, ahem.

- Beringer on the ground for a loose ball. And guess what? He gets the ball and it leads to a wide open three pointer! Who would have thought such a thing could happen with just a little bit of effort.

- One of the worst games of the Finch era from everyone associated with the organization.

- I really thought the Wolves had turned the corner about a week ago. Nope.

[AussieWolf3]

I don't know if this what you mean by this but I can't help to wonder if current events aren't playing a role in the rather extreme dip in performance over the last 5 games, which have all been in Minneapolis (right?)

I know no one wants to give em that kind of excuse but the circumstances are rather extreme- whatever your politics are.

I'm not discussing the details of what's going just commenting that it may be affecting the players.... Idk

That is exactly what I was suggesting.

I wasn't there tonight, but it certainly seemed like the crowd was impacted by what's going on in the city...maybe Lip can weigh in if he was there. And a quiet crowd might have an impact of our energy level. But I guess I don't know how much a team of young multi-millionaires who didn't grow up in town care about some middle class liberals getting gunned down on the streets in Minneapolis. It's not their world...they limo from the arena to their palaces or penthouse apartments, and don't have much connection to what's happening in town. And the way they talk about their off time, it's all about babies and video games...I wonder how many of our guys spend much time with a newspaper or a news feed. I recognize that is quite judgmental of me, but it's what I think...their world is light years away from all of ours.

(this is Timberwolves related, so I hope it doesn't run afoul of the "no politics" rule.)

It's really hard to say whether they're thinking about or care about it, but this is obviously more than "middle class liberals getting gunned down".... Obviously.

I just finished watching the 1st quarter, doute I'll watch more, but don't know what it is but something is obviously off with this team.
They're really out of sync, passes are off or late, guys can't handle passes when they get them and they all look like they've never played together before.

They may not care about what's happening around them (they are human after all and it's certainly possible they do), but it all still might be tilting them a bit because this 3 game stretch has been crazy bad, and they've looked like a completely different team since coming home.

For what it's worth I thought the half court defense was fine in the first, just way too many turnovers and Ant was legit good defensively. I'm guessing that faded as the game progressed

[Q-is-here]

Abe's "I'm not trying to be repetitive, but there certainly seems to be some legit trends in this game" DVR Review:

- Rough start. Loose ball bounces out near Randle's feet near the arc. He's the closest player to the ball. But he stands there while 37-year-old Steph Curry dives on the floor. Curry gets the ball... three pointer on the other end for the Warriors.

- A lot of turnovers.

- Four Wolves players... one Warriors player (a guard... maybe Melton?) as the Warriors miss a three pointer. FOUR Wolves player vs. ONE Warriors player... the Wolves commit the foul.

- More turnovers.

- Wolves down 30 - 38... Podz tips the inbounds pass. Even though Bones is closer to the ball... Podz dives for the ball as Bones stands there. Podz gets the ball.

- Mike Conley wide open for three. Nope. He passes it for a worse shot that Divencenzo passes up to make another TO.

- Conley is just a semi-warm body out there. He now has 9 points in his last 92 minutes on the court. (5 losses). Is Kevin Ollie available? WTF.

- You all know how I feel about Rob Dillingham. But he had moments where he brought energy off the bench last year. That's what you need from the bench. ENERGY! The starters have none in this game. NONE.

- 33 - 42. There's a deflection. Once again, Julus Randle is closest to the ball. Reid is right there, too. Nope. The Warriors player is the only one who hits the deck. He gets the ball. Turnover #15 for Minnesota.

- Edwards hits a three and seems to say "I aint passing the ball no more." In all honesty, maybe a good plan. Edwards has about 6 TOs already in this one.

- Start of the 2nd half seems a lot like the start of the 1st to carry on the theme of this post.

- 53 - 64... loose ball yet again. For the 1st time... Randle is the guy on the ground. Guess what happens? You'll never fucking believe what happens... I swear you won't fucking believe it!!!!!! Yes. Randle gets the ball and the Wolves get an easy bucket out of it on the other end.

- Well, that was fleeting... Curry misses a three on the other end with the score now 55 - 64. AGAIN, the Wolves have 4 players with inside position for the rebound. The Warriors have only one guy crashing. The Wolves foul that one guy. Again.

- The Wolves play tomorrow. And then 4 times in 5 days. And yet... Finch is still going with a 6-man lineup. (I'm not counting Conley or Bones because it's honestly like they're not even on the court.) I like Finch and I'm not in the camp to fire him. BUT... this bench thing is weird at this point. There's no reason to stick with the starters in this game this long unless...

... Finch is punishing the starters.
... He's pouting and trying to prove a point to Tim Connelly about the obvious thin bench this team has.
... He fell asleep and Nori was out getting popcorn so nobody woke him.

- Almost the entire 2nd half has been one Wolves player after another taking turns going bully ball iso from top of the key. It has NOT been all that effective. LOL.

- I don't have words for how Randle and McDaniels are playing in this game other than "meh" seems to fit.

- Beringer playing with energy. Ahem, ahem.

- Beringer on the ground for a loose ball. And guess what? He gets the ball and it leads to a wide open three pointer! Who would have thought such a thing could happen with just a little bit of effort.

- One of the worst games of the Finch era from everyone associated with the organization.

- I really thought the Wolves had turned the corner about a week ago. Nope.

Thanks for the recap Abe. I missed this one, so it was helpful to read your recap and everyone else's comments.

What a roller-coaster ride of a season. To your point, things seemed pretty bad when we lost those games to Brooklyn and Atlanta, but then it really did seem like we turned a corner. Now things are as bad as they have been in a while.

[Q-is-here]

One of the things that made the '21-22 Wolves team so endearing is that we had two absolute dogs in the starting lineup in Patrick Beverley and Jarred Vanderbilt. One was known as a vet fiery defender and agitator and the other was a guy fighting like hell for a place in the NBA. They brought it every night, warts and all.

All these guys at the top of the rotation got paid and are very secure in their jobs with Finch's rotation in a straight jacket, making it easy to fall victim to the dog days of the season, cold weather, miserable state of affairs in the city, and just a general ennui that has set in. We could use a Vando or PBev right now.

[kekgeek]

Timberwolves still 3 games better this year than last year at this point and the second best start through 46 games under Finch. It’s been bad basketball lately but just providing the context.

[Lipoli390]

Abe - Good post. The observation that caught my attention in particular was about Finch’s tight rotation: “The Wolves play tomorrow. And then 4 times in 5 days. And yet... Finch is still going with a 6-man lineup. (I'm not counting Conley or Bones because it's honestly like they're not even on the court.) I like Finch and I'm not in the camp to fire him. BUT... this bench thing is weird at this point. There's no reason to stick with the starters in this game this long unless...”

At the annual stakeholder meeting, Finch told us that the rotation would get tighter as the season progresses. He said that’s what teams do as they get closer to the playoffs. I think it’s crap. I think we have a head coach problem.

We need a new head coach and we need a couple players like Pat Bev and Vanderbilt per Q’s post. It may be too late to sell high on Randle, but let’s trade him now before his value declines more, which I believe it will. Recent events have been a huge downer for everyone, but this team has shown a remarkable and deplorable lack of effort and intensity in way too many games and far too many minutes of games throughout the season well before these recent non-basketball events. It should be obvious now if it wasn’t already that we’re not a Coby White or Tre Jones from championship contention. This team needs a revamp. I’ve included Jaden and Naz with Ant as my core to rebuild around, but right now I’m thinking Ant, Donte, Beringer and Rocco. I don’t like Donte’s inconsistency, but he provides consistent effort and intensity and he does a lot of the little things that win games if others take care of the big things. I’d still keep Rob and Shannon because I still see both becoming really good players.

I’d start the re-tool by trading Randle to a win-now team in exchange for young talent then go from there. We probably ought to tank the rest of the season since this is one of those rare years when we’ll have a 1st round pick. Utah has swap rights but even tanking won’t result in a worse record than Utah’s. Honestly, I don’t really want to tank, but let’s play the young guys with Ant, Jaden, Naz, Donte and Rudy then see where the chips fall.