Minnesota Sports Forum

Looking forward to your full game report LST!

Sounds like Rubio missed the scrimmage due to a strained quad. His ankle is apparently feeling fine.

It's like whack-a-mole with the injuries!

Team Black beat Team White 68-54 in what was obviously a shortened format. I have some stats from various Twitter feeds, but I don't think there was a full box score kept.

Team Black:
Tyus - PG
Lavine - SG (11 points, 5 assists)
WIggins - SF
KG - PF
Towns - C (12 points, 5 rebounds)
Bjelica
Nunez (13 points - that means he must have hit a 2 pointer since 13 isn't divisible by 3! A-M-A-Z-I-N-G)

Team White:
Miller - PG
Martin - SG
Bazz - SF
Payne - PF (11 points, 11 rebounds)
Dieng - C
Brown
Prince

The tweets that I have been following had the black team dominating for most of the night. Apparently the final score wasn't indicative of the play. Tyus had some 3's and Bjelica was being universally praised for his passing. Like the looks of this defacto starting lineup - as I and some others have predicted.

I was impressed with Zach, AP, Towns, and Jones. Bjelica can pass, but got sloopy on few. AP was not afraid to get physical. They played decent D.

This is a tough one to analyze, guys. I'm struggling to decide if the offenses were so out of synch because Sam's defensive lessons have made a mark so quickly, or because we just didn't play very good offense tonight. Probably a little of both, but maybe a little more of the good defense. Anyway, if last year in Mankato was "Dunks After Dark", tonight at TC was "Three's and D after Dark". It was difficult to recognize last year's team on the court tonight, and for the most part that's a good thing. In fact, the only three dunks of the night came in the second half after turnovers. Nothing came easy in the half court sets.

First, we got a hint of how Sam is looking at rotations. It looks like his starters (black team) are Towns, KG, Wig, LaVine and Rubio, and his second team (white team) is Dieng, Payne, Bazz, Martin and Miller. Lorenzo, Prince, and Little Wiggins rounded out the White Team, and Tyus, Rudez, NB, and Cleon joined the Black Team...with Tyus taking Rubio's place at starting PG.

The starters beat the reserves, 68-55, but it wasn't that close at all...the starters led by 24 after 3. You could tell right away that practices had stressed defense, because almost everyone (except for guys over 30 not named Garnett) played aggressive, effective defense...it was fun to watch. Defenders were denying entry passes, rotating well and defending the pick and roll better than I have seen from the Wolves in a long time. Partly because of the defense, but also because of several missed shots, the score was 4-3 in favor of the white team with just two minutes left in the first quarter...that's right...4-3! After that a barrage of threes brought the score up to a more respectable level.

6 of those threes for the starters came from Tyus and Rudez...I think they were each 3-4 on threes. But they weren't the only guys hitting threes...I don't know if they will publish stats, but it seemed like at least half of the points for the starters came on threes. I had to pinch myself a couple times to make sure this was really the Wolves I was watching...an offense built around the 3-point shot, what a novel idea!

Now for some individual player reports. Towns had a really good game and looked much more comfortable than he did in Vegas. He was bothered by Gorgui's length in the early going and missed his first four shots, but after that he scored in a variety of ways...almost all inside. He held his position well on the boards and showed the same passing ability he showed in Vegas. Defensively he was very sound...most of Gorgui's points game late in the game when Karl was out, and he only had a couple fouls. Towns really looked like he deserved the starting center job tonight.

Tyus Jones was terrific. Forced into the starting PG role with Rubio sitting out, he completely outplayed Andre Miller all night. He ran the first team offense effectively (the lack of scoring in the early going was due more to missed shots) and shot well when he was open...I think he was likely the high scorer for the black team. It probably helped a lot that he was playing against an unathletic guy like Miller, but he really looked like an NBA point guard tonight.

Zach had a good all around game, and like Towns, also looked like he deserves the starting spot. KMart jocked him a couple times in the early going (but Martin will do that to almost anyone), but on the whole he outplayed Kevin. He seemed like he could get his shot off whenever he wanted to, and probably ended up with about 12 points. With Ricky out, Zach became his team's backup PG, and he looked much more comfortable facilitating there than last year...a few nice assists. I think his performance there along with Tyus' nice game has to be the final nail in the coffin for Lorenzo.

Payne and Bjelica's performance was mixed. It looks like Sam has Payne ahead of NB on the depth chart right now, and I think that is fair. Adreain was the most active and physical player on the court tonight, and the best rebounder. And he played solid and disruptive defense all night. But while he was likely the high scorer for the white team, he was not efficient and seemed to look for his shot too often. If Sam can get him to continue with the good defense and rebounding, but play within himself more on offense, he can be a good backup to KG. Bjelica on the other hand is the complete opposite. He passes the ball so well, you can tell right away what a skilled basketball player he is. But he is only an average defender, rebounded very poorly tonight, and seldom looked to score the basketball. Adreian's length and activity seemed to intimidate him offensively, and he looked most comfortable getting rid of the ball quickly when it came to him. I think he has great potential, but he needs to adjust to the NBA game and is behind Adreian at the moment.

Rudez was terrific from the outside, but offers nothing else. Shabazz was able to beat him off the dribble every time he tried to guard him, and I don't think he knows what a rebound is. That said, he seems to have built some chemistry with this team and he did score in double figures, so he has to be in the lead for 15th man after tonight.

Wiggins was a paradox. He was largely invisible on offense, but his defense also made Shabazz largely invisible...and that's tough to do. His defense was superb, his ball handling looked much improved over last year, but his lack of passion offensively really frustrates me sometimes. I'm giving him a pass because it was only a scrimmage, but I want to see much more from him.

Lloyd asked me for a mentoring review, and KG was a runaway winner. Granted, I was much closer to the Black Team's bench and maybe there was some mentoring going on over there that I couldn't see, but KG was a Mentoring Monster tonight. He didn't play many minutes, but he was constantly giving one-on-one instruction to his teammates...especially Towns and, oddly enough, Tyus. He also spent some time in the faces of Rudez and NB...I hope they could understand him! Towns is a sponge when it comes to listening to KG (his dad said the same thing after the game), and I think you guys were right when you said he would benefit from being on the court with KG...I think KG's presence might have been a big factor in how much better he looked tonight then he did in Vegas.

Lowe coached the white team and little Adelman the black, while Sam relaxed on the sidelines and looked cool.

Anything else you guys want to know?

Great stuff LST, and thanks for the mentor update! Lip will want to know if anyone was smiling during the game, great to hear about the solid defensive effort and good dose of 3's taken. I'm going to try and not criticize Wiggins's offense this year, only hoping for a small improvement.

Thanks LST, lots of good stuff there. I want to ask you more about Wiggins. Does he look noticeably taller? Did he just defer most of the night, or was he lazy? Did he run the floor hard?

Great to hear about Tyus schooling Miller. Also good to hear Zach had his way with Kmart. We need that to play out that way.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Thanks LST, lots of good stuff there. I want to ask you more about Wiggins. Does he look noticeably taller? Did he just defer most of the night, or was he lazy? Did he run the floor hard?

Great to hear about Tyus schooling Miller. Also good to hear Zach had his way with Kmart. We need that to play out that way.

Wiggins was perhaps the biggest disappointment tonight, although I'm only talking about the offensive side of the ball. As I mentioned before, he did good job of taking Shabazz out of his game. I noticed that he looked taller when he played for the Canadian team, but it wasn't as noticeable to me tonight...I guess I've adjusted to his added height. I can't say if he was deferential or lazy on offense, but it just seemed like he wasn't involved very much. As for running the floor hard, with Tyus and Miller running the point most of the night, it wasn't exactly a fast break night! It was more of a plodding game, which I think is more to Sam Mitchell's style.

I was pleased with Tyus' play tonight, but I'm taking it with a grain of salt because Miller seemed disinterested. He did take a nice charge off of Miller which really impressed me, and defense overall was better than I would have expected. I guess the best way of describing his play tonight as that the stage didn't seem too big for him, like it sometimes did in Vegas. I'm curious to see how he plays against a more athletic opponent.

BizarroJerry wrote:Great stuff LST, and thanks for the mentor update! Lip will want to know if anyone was smiling during the game, great to hear about the solid defensive effort and good dose of 3's taken. I'm going to try and not criticize Wiggins's offense this year, only hoping for a small improvement.

Here's the smile report: Ricky and Pek were loose and joyous, probably because they had the night off. And Sam Mitchell looked relaxed and smiling in the stands. The rest of the players seemed to take their cue from KG...if he was serious (which he was most of the night), his teammates were serious. But I did notice that KG precipitated a little joking around right before the opening tap, and as a result, everyone felt comfortable smiling. All in all though, the players were more KG-like than Wes Johnson-like.