Minnesota Sports Forum

Q-is-here wrote: ↑Wed Apr 23, 2025 11:55 am

davemang wrote: ↑Wed Apr 23, 2025 12:11 am Turns out when Mike, Donte, Naw, Naz, and Jaden all have really bad or awful games, it's gonna be tough to win a playoff game. By comparison Ant looked fine, but I think he didn't have a consistent enough impact, just kinda putting his work in spurts. Appreciate Randle's toughness in games like this - this goes down as a demoralizing 20-30 point beatdown without him grinding the whole game.

Gobert has been so bad on offense - I feel like his screens haven't been effective and he's not able to impact the offensive glass enough. I think his D is fine and without looking at the numbers, when they try and target him on the perimeter it doesn't seem like it's been very effective even if Luka hits the occasional step back 28 footer.

He's gone back to having paddle-hands, as if he has no individual fingers and opposable thumbs, but just two wooden planks he can use to slap at the ball and then when he does secure it, it is easily poked out or just slips from his grasp. So frustrating to watch.

Yeah, Rudy's lack of offense and offensive rebounding has been a big negative surprise for me...I really thought he would dominate in this series based on how well he was playing at the end of the season. Maybe we'll see it starting tomorrow.

But his defense has been terrific. It was fun to see the LA fans get their phones out so hyped up to see what Luka was going to do to him when he had him on an island. But Rudy won almost every one-on-one battle, including when he was matched up with LeBron. He's a big reason we've held LA under 100 both games. The Lakers only scored less than 100 once this season with Luka and LeBron both playing.