Minnesota Sports Forum

Just read the whole thread, and I must say I'm disappointed. From the sarcastic complaining in the beginning to the criticism of the Towns interview - lighten up a little bit. The guy just played his ass off for 40 minutes, and then gets a mic shoved in his face. So he didn't come across exactly the way you would have liked, so what. If you hadn't seen the game and just read this thread, you would think Zach played at a super human level and Wig was his bucket boy. Give me a break. They were both huge tonight, not one more than the other. Wig had to drag Butler around all night and he came up with a great effort. They both made big shots throughout the game. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting Wig the ball at key points in games. Most of you expect him to be perfect every time he initiates. Fact is he's damn good most of the time either getting himself a good look, or someone else. Thibs isn't having him initiate nearly as much as you think, and when he does the results have generally been good. THAT'S WHY HE'S FUCKING DOING IT!

Dieng was really good tonight. Ricky hurts us on both ends of the floor, even on a night like tonight when his numbers were decent. I can't think of a point guard in the league that can't get him off balance and drive around him. I'm ready to move on. It's really looking like Zach can play point guard now. I thought it might get to this point, but the maturation appears remarkable. I wish Thibs had the guts to move Ricky, put Zach at the 1 and Wig at the two. It would make us even more dynamic on offense.

Dunn was okay, Bazz was Bazz, and I thought Aldrich did a decent job. Really enjoyable game after the first quarter. We've had a couple nice road wins now, if we could only protect our home floor we might actually see a 2nd half of the season renaissance.

Ricky wasn't the singular reason we won tonight, but we don't win that game without him. Saying he hurt us on both ends of the floor just isn't true for this particular game.

Very simple why we won tonight, the last three quarters we gave up 18, 19, and 19 points. Yeah the Bulls sucked but that is easily the best defensive stretch of the season. And thus when the bonehead plays occurred from the young guys (Towns and Wiggs especially) as they always do, we were able to hold on.

If they can build on these 3 quarters defensively, they can still turn it around, because the offense is there most nights. Also you could really see how defense leads to the running game, and man do we need to run. It's the one area that we have a natural advantage over most teams due to our super athletes and Ricky's passing, not to mention the young legs.

The next game is the high scoring Rockets, they are putting up 112 a game. Lets see if some of this defense carries over. If they give up 115 to 120 like expected they will be back to square one. Give up 100 to 105 and the game is winnable.

Camden wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:Hey towns gave thibs a big hug after the win. Apparently wiggins had a huge smile on his face taking about thibs on the radio. Hope we can build on this.

Best defense all year

Noticed Jimmy Butler also walked over to Thibs after the game and gave him a hug. Butler and Gibson walked over to him pre-game too. You see those efforts, you read about Noah saying he missed him and all that, you hear Rose talk about going to dinner with him and how often he stuck up for him, and you just see that Thibs does connect with players despite what some articles say about him.

Camden wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:Hey towns gave thibs a big hug after the win. Apparently wiggins had a huge smile on his face taking about thibs on the radio. Hope we can build on this.

Best defense all year

Noticed Jimmy Butler also walked over to Thibs after the game and gave him a hug. Butler and Gibson walked over to him pre-game too. You see those efforts, you read about Noah saying he missed him and all that, you hear Rose talk about going to dinner with him and how often he stuck up for him, and you just see that Thibs does connect with players despite what some articles say about him.

I think any objective viewpoint would conclude the news is mixed on players' thoughts about playing for Thibs, Cam. Players giving their ex-coach a hug is commonplace, at least for every coach not named Carlissimo, and means about as much to me as the platitudes players say publicly about their coach. More meaningful to me are the comments Noah made about the impact of Thibs' intense practices during the season, or the fact that none of the stars he coached in Chicago ended up here (I recognize a lot of that is financial, but I suspect not all).

I also chuckled when I read Noah's comments about missing Thibs...you know, the one about missing him after he's gone. I've had a lot of girlfriends that I missed after I was gone, but I was miserable when we were together...I read some of that into Noah's comments also!

Duke13 wrote:And Rubio had decent stats and definitely played well tonight but spacing was an issue in the 4th due to him. They exploited him offensively big time. Imagine that in a playoff series.

Duke, only in your world would Ricky's stats last night be described as only "decent"...even Pork is chuckling! 10 assists against only 2 TOs (he's now almost leading the league in A:TO ratio) and 11 efficient points on only 6 shots (by far the most efficient scorer on the team last night). And yes, they did sag off him at times...but look what happened when they did. He hit a big 3 (his only attempt of the night). Then, add in his 5 rebounds, a steal and no fouls.

Ricky has not played anywhere near the level most of us know he can play this year, but you really have to dig absurdly deep to find any negatives about his game last night.

longstrangetrip wrote:

Duke13 wrote:And Rubio had decent stats and definitely played well tonight but spacing was an issue in the 4th due to him. They exploited him offensively big time. Imagine that in a playoff series.

Duke, only in your world would Ricky's stats last night be described as only "decent"...even Pork is chuckling! 10 assists against only 2 TOs (he's now almost leading the league in A:TO ratio) and 11 efficient points on only 6 shots (by far the most efficient scorer on the team last night). And yes, they did sag off him at times...but look what happened when they did. He hit a big 3 (his only attempt of the night). Then, add in his 5 rebounds, a steal and no fouls.

Ricky has not played anywhere near the level most of us know he can play this year, but you really have to dig absurdly deep to find any negatives about his game last night.

Heh, Duke's entire purpose in originally coming to this site was to troll Rubio, so it's not surprising to see him begrudge and minimize Rubio when he has a good game (which yes, has been few and far between this year).

The thing is he actually has some solid insights when the topic doesn't involve his obsession with Rubio.

Camden wrote:Ricky wasn't the singular reason we won tonight, but we don't win that game without him. Saying he hurt us on both ends of the floor just isn't true for this particular game.

Didn't watch. Wouldn't know... but was this the first game we can say that about Rubio this season?

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:Ricky wasn't the singular reason we won tonight, but we don't win that game without him. Saying he hurt us on both ends of the floor just isn't true for this particular game.

Didn't watch. Wouldn't know... but was this the first game we can say that about Rubio this season?

No. He was absolutely huge in that Charlotte win just a few games ago. We don't win that game without him on the floor. And by the way, his biggest plays came in - gasp! - crunch time. He made a key jumper and made two huge defensive plays.

longstrangetrip wrote:

Camden wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:Hey towns gave thibs a big hug after the win. Apparently wiggins had a huge smile on his face taking about thibs on the radio. Hope we can build on this.

Best defense all year

Noticed Jimmy Butler also walked over to Thibs after the game and gave him a hug. Butler and Gibson walked over to him pre-game too. You see those efforts, you read about Noah saying he missed him and all that, you hear Rose talk about going to dinner with him and how often he stuck up for him, and you just see that Thibs does connect with players despite what some articles say about him.

Camden wrote:

kekgeek1 wrote:Hey towns gave thibs a big hug after the win. Apparently wiggins had a huge smile on his face taking about thibs on the radio. Hope we can build on this.

Best defense all year

Noticed Jimmy Butler also walked over to Thibs after the game and gave him a hug. Butler and Gibson walked over to him pre-game too. You see those efforts, you read about Noah saying he missed him and all that, you hear Rose talk about going to dinner with him and how often he stuck up for him, and you just see that Thibs does connect with players despite what some articles say about him.

I think any objective viewpoint would conclude the news is mixed on players' thoughts about playing for Thibs, Cam. Players giving their ex-coach a hug is commonplace, at least for every coach not named Carlissimo, and means about as much to me as the platitudes players say publicly about their coach. More meaningful to me are the comments Noah made about the impact of Thibs' intense practices during the season, or the fact that none of the stars he coached in Chicago ended up here (I recognize a lot of that is financial, but I suspect not all).

I also chuckled when I read Noah's comments about missing Thibs...you know, the one about missing him after he's gone. I've had a lot of girlfriends that I missed after I was gone, but I was miserable when we were together...I read some of that into Noah's comments also!

We've always spun stats to create our own narratives. Now, we're spinning hugs and quotes to do the same.

Not a direct knock on you long. Just amusing that different people can get such different takes on such benign things... and how each of those takes directly supports the opinions each of you already had.

Q12543 wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Camden wrote:Ricky wasn't the singular reason we won tonight, but we don't win that game without him. Saying he hurt us on both ends of the floor just isn't true for this particular game.

Didn't watch. Wouldn't know... but was this the first game we can say that about Rubio this season?

No. He was absolutely huge in that Charlotte win just a few games ago. We don't win that game without him on the floor. And by the way, his biggest plays came in - gasp! - crunch time. He made a key jumper and made two huge defensive plays.

Maybe. But that's a just assuming nobody else would have made that one jumper or defensive plays. Could some other random PG around the league done the same thing?

He was still largely mediocre for a big chunk of that game, but ended up with a more traditional Rubio stat line.
Rubio: 2 - 7 fg / 9 points / 7 reb / 12 asts

And it came in a game where his backup played pretty well in less than 1/2 the minutes.
Dunn: 3 - 5 fg / 8 points / 2 reb / 6 asts