Minnesota Sports Forum

lipoli390 wrote:Thanks for the report. I wasn't able to watch the game tonight. Not even sure it was televised.

The box score supports your take on Towns tonight - 36 points, 50% from the field, 7 of 8 free throws, 7 of 11 from behind the arc, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals and 3 blocks. Wow!

The box score also confirms your take on Okogie - 11 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal in only 14:26 minutes. He got to the line 8 times in that short stint and made all but two of his free throws. He has to get a lot more minutes going forward. Culver had slightly more minutes but wasn't nearly as productive as Okogie. While Okogie's shot is inconsistent, Culver's is broken.

I accept your observation that Graham was solid tonight. But his shooting was atrocious - 4 for 13 from the field, 0-3 from behind the arc and only one free throw attempt. He did, however, have 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 1 steal so his stats show effort and productivity in other areas of the game beyond scoring.

I like Layman's stat line - 10 points on 57% shooting from the field, including 2-4 from behind the arc.

Wiggins stat line looks typical except for his 8 rebounds - 0 assists, 0 steals, 50% from the line on only 2 free throw attempts and 37% shooting from the field. Classic inefficient scoring from Andrew.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Any win we can get while this team is trying to get used to each other is a bonus. In Tim's Clunk-o-meter this would definitely be a +1.

crazy-canuck wrote:Interesting post game quotes:

Roco:

"Yeah, I said something to Ryan," Covington explained. "I was like, 'you need to put our unit in.' They were trying to figure it out, and I'm like, ' yeah, we need Josh and Jake in. We need them to win.'

"They were trying to figure out lineups anyway. So I'm like, 'just trust, put Josh in.' And that's the type of relationship that me and Ryan have. So, we made the adjustment, and Josh did his job."

Kat:

"I thought that they were very keyed-in on me especially," Towns explained. "Just talking to Ryan, I was just trying to tell him that our best option was to get a pick-and-roll to Wig to get him going downhill."

No chance any of this happens under thibs.

monsterpile wrote:I think one of the things that surprises me about Vonleh is he doesn't look comfortable taking 3's. I'm not saying I was expecting him to be jacking them up every time he is wide open but I thought he was gonna let them fly more. The one he took in this game certainly didn't look confident at all. Like Q said at least he kept DJ from dunking all over us like usual. Probably earned like 1/4 of his 2 million for my view by doing that in 1 game. lol jk

Q12543 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:I think one of the things that surprises me about Vonleh is he doesn't look comfortable taking 3's. I'm not saying I was expecting him to be jacking them up every time he is wide open but I thought he was gonna let them fly more. The one he took in this game certainly didn't look confident at all. Like Q said at least he kept DJ from dunking all over us like usual. Probably earned like 1/4 of his 2 million for my view by doing that in 1 game. lol jk

Yeah, I thought both KAT and Vonleh did some solid work in pick and roll coverage. I think there were may be only one or two instances where there was ultimately someone with an open dunk. In prior seasons, Allen and Jordan would have gotten 5 or 6 easy dunks. That was an encouraging sign.

Q12543 wrote:Great win, but I didn't see anything that made me feel like this team is going to outperform expectations. On offense, we clanked tons of 3s and were overly reliant on Wiggins to create shots. On defense, we played an outstanding 1st half, but then totally collapsed in the 3rd quarter and struggled to keep them off the boards. Sound familiar?

Having said that, it's clear that we have some guys willing to compete and play hard with the likes of Okogie, Graham, and RoCo. RoCo had a quiet second half, but we know he is capable of being all over the place defensively. The other two have that hard-nosed intensity about them too. This team needs that, because other than KAT, we are short on talent. We are going to need to out-grit and grind teams to eek out some wins.

Lastly, Culver looked like the rookie he is. He looked tentative to me and his outside shot looks horrible. I like working him in the rotation for brief stretches, as it appears that he won't hurt us a ton out there, but he is a long ways off from the shot maker and play maker we so desperately could use on the wing.

WolvesFan21 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:Great win, but I didn't see anything that made me feel like this team is going to outperform expectations. On offense, we clanked tons of 3s and were overly reliant on Wiggins to create shots. On defense, we played an outstanding 1st half, but then totally collapsed in the 3rd quarter and struggled to keep them off the boards. Sound familiar?

Having said that, it's clear that we have some guys willing to compete and play hard with the likes of Okogie, Graham, and RoCo. RoCo had a quiet second half, but we know he is capable of being all over the place defensively. The other two have that hard-nosed intensity about them too. This team needs that, because other than KAT, we are short on talent. We are going to need to out-grit and grind teams to eek out some wins.

Lastly, Culver looked like the rookie he is. He looked tentative to me and his outside shot looks horrible. I like working him in the rotation for brief stretches, as it appears that he won't hurt us a ton out there, but he is a long ways off from the shot maker and play maker we so desperately could use on the wing.

I think Wiggins 3 pointer looks far worse than Culvers. Wiggins was shooting scud missiles, no arc at all. I feel better about Culver developing a solid 3 point game, while with Wiggins, it's close to zero at this point. He has had streaks of good shooting but it never lasts, I don't know why.