lipoli390 wrote:It was, however, good to see Wiggins pull down 6 rebounds. I noticed Zach had 5 boards and seemed to shoot well from behind the arc. Gorgui's rebounding stats were impressive. I'm surprised we scored more points in the paint than the Griz and we did get to the line more than they did. So it looks like there were some positives.
Dunn made some nice slashing plays in the paint. And after he takes a few laps around the league, he will be an absolute beast defensively. He might already be our best perimeter player at fighting over screens, something a lot of our guys seem to struggle with (including Rubio at times).
Rubio really struggled at that tonight, and unlike Dunn, he doesn't have the athleticism to recover.
Brooklyn_Wolves wrote:This loss should be a good lesson and hopefully a motivation.
All the negative nancys and " I told you so" trolls should log off and go to bed. This team will figure it out.
Only the bench that I'm worried about.
I'm not even worried about the bench - yet. I expect Rush and Belly to shoot most games much better than they shot tonight. I still think Bazz can step up and Dunn will keep getting better. Aldrich is solid. This is a work in progress, but I have faith in Thibs and the collection of talent on this roster.
lipoli390 wrote:It was, however, good to see Wiggins pull down 6 rebounds. I noticed Zach had 5 boards and seemed to shoot well from behind the arc. Gorgui's rebounding stats were impressive. I'm surprised we scored more points in the paint than the Griz and we did get to the line more than they did. So it looks like there were some positives.
Wiggins had a huge one too. Tied game, missed shot by LaVine? And wiggins got the rebound and fouled for two shots. Then he missed them both.
khans2k5 wrote:Love to beat a dead horse, but one of these things is not like the others:
21/4/5
25/7
12/14/2
19/5/3
4/8/4 (0pts, 2 assists in the 4th quarter)
...and yes our bench sucked and we missed FT's, but it just can't be a coincidence our ineptitude to start the 3rd and down the stretch with a primary ball handler who doesn't score. 1-5, 0-1, 2-5 for Ricky. I'll step back and soak in the criticism now.
He's a unique player, that's for sure and will defer to the talent around him at the end of games.
Between February and April - when the current starting 5 was coming together last year - this crew went 6-2 in close games, meaning games that went to OT or were decided by 4 points or less. Funny how that never seemed to get brought up by the likes of you, Duke, or Pork at the time. Rubio was our starting PG then too.
Maybe because we could just defer to the year we blew every close game when he was playing with Love and Pek and we were inept offensively closing out games.
A lot of those games didn't have to be close if Adelman didn't leave JJ Barea in so damn long where we gave up big leads. Plus, the Kevin Love missed FTs, the Gerald Green prayer, the non-call on Love's shot attempt where he was raked across the arm...there were a bunch of coin flip plays that didn't go our way.
The bottom line is that we have a PG that is surrounded by three gifted scorers. His job is to get them the damn ball and then they need to make plays. That didn't happen tonight.
lipoli390 wrote:It was, however, good to see Wiggins pull down 6 rebounds. I noticed Zach had 5 boards and seemed to shoot well from behind the arc. Gorgui's rebounding stats were impressive. I'm surprised we scored more points in the paint than the Griz and we did get to the line more than they did. So it looks like there were some positives.
Dunn made some nice slashing plays in the paint. And after he takes a few laps around the league, he will be an absolute beast defensively. He might already be our best perimeter player at fighting over screens, something a lot of our guys seem to struggle with (including Rubio at times).
Rubio really struggled at that tonight, and unlike Dunn, he doesn't have the athleticism to recover.
Good to hear your take on Dunn's play tonight. Ricky's a very good defensive PG, but watching Dunn the last preseason game, Dunn looked better than Ricky on the defensive end. The one thing I expect to see is Dunn getting better and better over the course of the season on both ends.
Nights like tonight make me not wanna buy into the hype with this team.
I thought LaVine was severely underutilized and I don't care how wily a vet Vince Carter is, Andrew Wiggins needs to hang his head given how easily Vince Carter handled him defensively.
Mike Conley has always had Ricky's number. One of the bad matchups Ricky gets every year.
KiwiMatt wrote:Not going to read into this result much. Grizzlies are a vet team and got a lot of home town calls.
I thought it was pretty evenly called. They seemed to really let both teams get after it near the end too.
That was a playoff environment at the end. Tons of clutching, grabbing, and pushing.
Definitely. I loved it. Good gritty 4th quarter. At least the pups never gave up. Like others had said, it was calm/been there 1000 times vs. Panic/forced play.
khans2k5 wrote:Love to beat a dead horse, but one of these things is not like the others:
21/4/5
25/7
12/14/2
19/5/3
4/8/4 (0pts, 2 assists in the 4th quarter)
...and yes our bench sucked and we missed FT's, but it just can't be a coincidence our ineptitude to start the 3rd and down the stretch with a primary ball handler who doesn't score. 1-5, 0-1, 2-5 for Ricky. I'll step back and soak in the criticism now.
He's a unique player, that's for sure and will defer to the talent around him at the end of games.
Between February and April - when the current starting 5 was coming together last year - this crew went 6-2 in close games, meaning games that went to OT or were decided by 4 points or less. Funny how that never seemed to get brought up by the likes of you, Duke, or Pork at the time. Rubio was our starting PG then too.
Maybe because we could just defer to the year we blew every close game when he was playing with Love and Pek and we were inept offensively closing out games.
A lot of those games didn't have to be close if Adelman didn't leave JJ Barea in so damn long where we gave up big leads. Plus, the Kevin Love missed FTs, the Gerald Green prayer, the non-call on Love's shot attempt where he was raked across the arm...there were a bunch of coin flip plays that didn't go our way.
The bottom line is that we have a PG that is surrounded by three gifted scorers. His job is to get them the damn ball and then they need to make plays. That didn't happen tonight.
Turns out it's hard to play 4v5 at the NBA level. If the offense is just get them the ball why wouldn't we play a better shooter in his spot to take advantage of the defense collapsing to guard the other 3 guys? It doesn't take any special skill to dribble the ball up the court and pass it off to someone else who is going to run the PnR. Dunn is a better defender too so why does Ricky need to play at the end of games?
Only caught the last few minutes but no doubt a frustrating way to start the season. Lavine's shot goes in and out, Wiggins grabs the board and misses 2 at the line, KAT's 3 pointer goes in and out, Rubio steps on the baseline. That is a series of plays that hopefully won't happen again soon. Not to mention the Grizzlies made plays--gotta give them credit, experience beat youth tonight.
One final thought: I really liked what Thibs had to say in the post-game interview. Instead of sounding upset or speaking in generalities he pointed out exactly the things that cost us the game: didn't guard the 3 point line, etc. I'm expecting a better performance on Saturday. We're still comin', just not tonight.
