Game Report - Wolves v. Magic

[AbeVigodaLive]

Watching at home...

Did my eyes deceive me... or did the Wolves take out Rubio for the last defensive possession? They subbed in Prince and Wiggins guarded Payton. Right?

[bleedspeed]

My more subjective observation is that Sam looks unsure of himself as he draws on his white board, erases and draws again. Flip was very, very different.

I wonder how much of this is that Sam doesn't have his assistants. The guy inherited what seems like a collection of some of the worst assistants in the league. It is damn tough to coach when you don't have your guys with you.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

I think the game was lost in the first half when we didn't match Orlando's energy. Instead, we had to claw back in the 2nd half. When you get into close game situations, you are leaving your fate largely in the hands of the officials and Basketball Gods, as random variability and luck plays a large role on any given play or call. If I shoot 50% from the field, there is a 50% chance on any given shot that I miss. For most of our guys, there is a 55%-60% chance they miss any given shot they take. So being in a situation where you HAVE to get a basket to tie or win....well, the odds are 50/50 at best.

As for Towns, I don't have a real problem with what Mitchell is doing. Gorgui really was playing well last night and I'm hoping this only fuels KAT's desire to get better and earn 4th quarter minutes. A little tough love doesn't hurt and I'd rather him take his lumps now. Let's not forget that Gorgui looked dejected at the beginning of this season. Kudos to Mitchell for rewarding him for recent good play. You can see how he's really stepped up lately.

[Lipoli390]

Lip tell us what you really think about Sam. I would be curious to see who you think is A level and how many of them are true options here.

It's not hard to come up with a list of A-level head coaches -- Popp, Carlisle, Joerger, Thibs, JVG, Stan VG, Doc Rivers are a few who come to mind. Then there are a few what I would consider to be emerging A-level head coaches - Brad Stevens, Stotts. Then there are those viewed widely as potential A-level coaches - Fred Hoiberg, Kenny Atkinson, Ime Udoka, Tyronn Lue. Some of these names are obvious consensus choices, some are more subjective.

As for who's available, obviously some are not - e.g., Popp and Carlisle. Some would clearly jump at the chance to coach the Wolves as a young very talented team - e.g., Atkinson and Lue. Others may be interested - JVG, Thibs. I'm convinced we could do far worse than Sam. Again, the name Kurt Rambis comes to mind among others. But I'm equally convinced we can and should do better than Sam. Of course, what happens the rest of this season could change my mind. So I'm definitely not in the fire Sam now camp.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Watching at home...

Did my eyes deceive me... or did the Wolves take out Rubio for the last defensive possession? They subbed in Prince and Wiggins guarded Payton. Right?

They did indeed. Payton has Rubio's number. In an earlier sequence, he essentially bullied his way to the hoop and scored at the rim on Rubio. He did a similar thing when the teams met in Orlando. Mitchell put Wiggins on Payton for the last defensive possession.

[Lipoli390]

My more subjective observation is that Sam looks unsure of himself as he draws on his white board, erases and draws again. Flip was very, very different.

I wonder how much of this is that Sam doesn't have his assistants. The guy inherited what seems like a collection of some of the worst assistants in the league. It is damn tough to coach when you don't have your guys with you.

Excellent point, Monster.

[AbeVigodaLive]

My more subjective observation is that Sam looks unsure of himself as he draws on his white board, erases and draws again. Flip was very, very different.

I wonder how much of this is that Sam doesn't have his assistants. The guy inherited what seems like a collection of some of the worst assistants in the league. It is damn tough to coach when you don't have your guys with you.

I think good assistant coaches can be underrated. Think about some of the most successful teams and look at who they have/had on the staff.

Those guys are going on to be successful NBA head coaches on their own (Brudenholzer). Or, bring a documented track record of success running big chunks of the team (Ron Adams). Does anybody really think Adelman, Lowe or Saunders are even remotely close to being on that level?

Losing Saunders just bumped everybody up a level on what was already a pretty thin assistant coaching tree.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Watching at home...

Did my eyes deceive me... or did the Wolves take out Rubio for the last defensive possession? They subbed in Prince and Wiggins guarded Payton. Right?

They did indeed. Payton has Rubio's number. In an earlier sequence, he essentially bullied his way to the hoop and scored at the rim on Rubio. He did a similar thing when the teams met in Orlando. Mitchell put Wiggins on Payton for the last defensive possession.

Yeah, that was a key hoop Payton made on Rubio. And he played well vs. Rubio in Orlando too.

Interesting... there are some similarities between the two guards...

[Carlos Danger]

Mamma said there'd be days like this. Shots were not falling. They seemed out of sync on offense. That said, they closed out tough and held the other team under 100 points again. Winnable game that they lost? Yep. But in the grand scheme of things - this team is way better than I thought they'd be up to this point. There is still some rotation stuff to figure out. But it's a new coach and a lot of new players or new roles. I'm content with the progress I've seen and now it's a matter of taking incremental steps forward. Martin played better last night and based on my eyeballs he's giving full effort on defense too. Dieng has been playing some very good ball on both offense and defense. That last defensive possession he played staying step for step in front of Vucevic was really clutch. Wiggins has become the go to guy that takes over the end of games which is good to see. Just a lot of inconsistency - which is probably normal for a pretty young team. It's gonna take time. But I personally find them fun to watch right now.

[BizarroJerry [enjin:6592520]]

Thanks for the reports Lip and others. 37% shooting won't win you any games, doesn't matter who the coach is. Nice to hear Dieng is improving these last 5 games. I might be the only one here not happy about Pek coming back, I know he'll help when somebody else gets injured, but he'll be taking minutes away from Dieng and Big KAT.