Minnesota Sports Forum

I've respectfully read all the support for Thibs' coaching in this game...both from a rotation and time out management standpoint...and I have to say I disagree. Thibs wanted that timeout after the Anthony three, and even inadvertently signaled for it in order to be able to inbound at half court and set up a play with 5 seconds left...fortunately the refs didn't see him ask for the TO, or we would have been assessed a technical.

And as for his rotations, only luck prevented a tired Wolves team from losing yet another game in which they enjoyed a 10-point plus lead (I believe their 22 blown double digit leads last year were close to an NBA futility record). Three things had to happen for the Wolves not to blow another double digit lead, and I would put the odds of all three happening at about 1 out of 100:

1) The refs had to miss seeing Thibs signaling for the timeout he didn't have

2) The refs had to miss the obvious illegal pick KAT set to free Wig up

(the NBA has subsequently commented that they missed both of these infractions)

3) and, Wig had to make a very difficult shot

I'm delighted with a win in OkC, and I thought we played very well (at least until the last 5 minutes), but let's not kid ourselves. Only an extremely fortunate co-occurrence of three events allowed the Wolves to not continue the script from last year. Thibs used his bench well in the first two games, so I'm hoping the OkC game was an aberration and not a return to last year. At least we escaped with a win...this time.

longstrangetrip wrote:I've respectfully read all the support for Thibs' coaching in this game...both from a rotation and time out management standpoint...and I have to say I disagree. Thibs wanted that timeout after the Anthony three, and even inadvertently signaled for it in order to be able to inbound at half court and set up a play with 5 seconds left...fortunately the refs didn't see him ask for the TO, or we would have been assessed a technical.

And as for his rotations, only luck prevented a tired Wolves team from losing yet another game in which they enjoyed a 10-point plus lead (I believe their 22 blown double digit leads last year were close to an NBA futility record). Three things had to happen for the Wolves not to blow another double digit lead, and I would put the odds of all three happening at about 1 out of 100:

1) The refs had to miss seeing Thibs signaling for the timeout he didn't have

2) The refs had to miss the obvious illegal pick KAT set to free Wig up

(the NBA has subsequently commented that they missed both of these infractions)

3) and, Wig had to make a very difficult shot

I'm delighted with a win in OkC, and I thought we played very well (at least until the last 5 minutes), but let's not kid ourselves. Only an extremely fortunate co-occurrence of three events allowed the Wolves to not continue the script from last year. Thibs used his bench well in the first two games, so I'm hoping the OkC game was an aberration and not a return to last year. At least we escaped with a win...this time.

Credit to Thibs for owning up to his mistake about the time out when asked about it. He had to feel pretty dumb espcially when he said they talked about not having the time out and what they would run if they had the again during the last time out.

I never saw any of the guys on the floor look tired late in the game. Last night against the Pacers Towns looked tired at times though. Lol