Minnesota Sports Forum

worldK wrote:Gasol and randolph owned us tonight. Pek was horrible. Thad had a great game offensively but zbo is just too big and strong, a bad matchup for him defensively.

Rubio continuied to show a consistent and improved jumper but 7 to's was a big negative to us. His handle was uncharacteristically shakey tonight.

Mo was big. He and thad are legit vets that are to stand up for the team every game., We need guys like that.

AB had a big throwdown to tie the game in the 4th. But he needs to balance his jumpers and cutting and slashing to the rim. He settled for too many jumpers tonight when it wasn't falling for him.

Dieng played with a lot of energy. Dont know if he could have done a better job on gasol than pek one on one but he played very good team defense tonight.

Wiggins was very quiet, passive and look like a rookie in his 1st game tonight. He has to be more aggressive going forward.

Bud was a disappointment after a good pre season. He might have played himself to a dnp-cd next game if martin suits up.

Bazz was a surprised and impressed me tonight. I love the fight in him. I was not high on him to start but if he keeps it up, I might just become a supporter.

All good points. I couldn't agree more with you on AB settling for too many jumpers. He needs to roll more than pop off picks. He's so strong that he should be making a living at the free throw line.

I thought Dieng played like a man tonight. We were a totally different team defensively when he was on the floor. It was good to see because even though his weakside help is always good, he can still get bullied in the paint by bigger C's. Not tonight.

Agree on 'Bazz. He's opened my eyes between tonight and the Chicago pre-season game.

Q12543 wrote:

worldK wrote:Gasol and randolph owned us tonight. Pek was horrible. Thad had a great game offensively but zbo is just too big and strong, a bad matchup for him defensively.

Rubio continuied to show a consistent and improved jumper but 7 to's was a big negative to us. His handle was uncharacteristically shakey tonight.

Mo was big. He and thad are legit vets that are to stand up for the team every game., We need guys like that.

AB had a big throwdown to tie the game in the 4th. But he needs to balance his jumpers and cutting and slashing to the rim. He settled for too many jumpers tonight when it wasn't falling for him.

Dieng played with a lot of energy. Dont know if he could have done a better job on gasol than pek one on one but he played very good team defense tonight.

Wiggins was very quiet, passive and look like a rookie in his 1st game tonight. He has to be more aggressive going forward.

Bud was a disappointment after a good pre season. He might have played himself to a dnp-cd next game if martin suits up.

Bazz was a surprised and impressed me tonight. I love the fight in him. I was not high on him to start but if he keeps it up, I might just become a supporter.

All good points. I couldn't agree more with you on AB settling for too many jumpers. He needs to roll more than pop off picks. He's so strong that he should be making a living at the free throw line.

I thought Dieng played like a man tonight. We were a totally different team defensively when he was on the floor. It was good to see because even though his weakside help is always good, he can still get bullied in the paint by bigger C's. Not tonight.

Agree on 'Bazz. He's opened my eyes between tonight and the Chicago pre-season game.

Great observations, guys. I hardly recognized Dieng tonight, especially after what I though was a rather mediocre preseason. But you're right, q...he played like a man tonight against a very physical team. And so did Bazz.

Our second team plays very aggressively.

The frontcourt domination for them tonight should be no surprise. It was brought up before the season that Thad/Pek would be no better defensively in the paint than Love/Pek as Thad was statistically just as bad as Love. Combine that with the fact that the Grizzlies basically start two All-Star caliber players in the frontcourt and you have a recipe for them to do what they did tonight. They're a really good team so this would have been a stolen win regardless.

Z-Bo ate on Thad and Thad ate on Z-Bo. I don't wanna hear about Thad being a "super-sub". He was our best player by far last night and came through in every clutch opportunity that I can think of. There was a time in the 2nd half where we were down by 7 and our offense was really stagnant and Thad jumped the passing lane on defense and scored a layup, which brought the game to 5. It felt like a point in the game where we might slip and lose it altogether, but he came up there. Also went at Z-Bo late in the 4th in several iso situations. Had a step back jumper, also had a face-up drive in which he got fouled (made both). Both of those plays gave us leads. I guess we won't give credit there either...

Also, I thought Thad was a big reason why Conley didn't go off. His (and Bennett's) hard hedges and quick feet kept Conley in check on the P&R. Unfortunately, MEM then went at Pekovic with Gasol and we couldn't stop it without cheating away from their shooters (Courtney Lee; remember I wanted us to acquire him last year).

Speaking of Pekovic... If he doesn't play so terribly, we probably win that game even without K-Mart. Too many missed layups and put-backs. On one shot it looked as if he threw the ball up at the rim as a prayer. He was fine at rebounding. Complete non-factor on post-ups other than one drop step on Z-Bo. Fortunately for us, we've seen Pek shake off early season rust before. I expect it'll take 10-15 games or so and he'll be back to his efficient 20/10-ish ways.

Shabazz was awesome. AWESOME. 13/7 off the bench, with a corner three and a nice assist out of the post to Bennett on a cut. Really thrilled with his production last night. I felt much more confident in our team rebounding when he was in the game. By the way, his vertical explosiveness looks even better than last year with the weight loss. He made a sweet lefty push shot, but right after that he tried to go with the same move and the defender beat him to his spot and took the ball. That's where Bazz needs a counter move, perhaps an up and under there. Also liked that he was confident in his jumper. Missed his first three, but several possessions later he nailed a corner three. Then in the 4th Thad found him on the baseline for an open 15-footer and he cashed it in.

Bennett started poorly, but finished strong. Nice outing overall. As I've said over and over, he falls in love with his jumper too often. It was at the point where he wasn't even reacting to the defense. As soon as the ball hit his hands he was rising up for his shot. Blegh. Hate to see a guy that athletic, that wide, that quick settling for long 2s. GET IN THE PAINT. Also looked better on defense than he did last year. Looks more focused and the weight loss couldn't have hurt him.

Not going to say too much about Rubio. I thought the refs were awful to him. Conley and Allen got away with a ton of reaches, and several drives should have resulted in FTs for him. Still too many TOs and there's no excuse for poor decisions. I will say, though, that MIN got screwed late 4th quarter by the officials. Conley slapped the ball out of Rubio's hands and Ricky made an effort to grab it, but never touched the ball. MEM was rewarded with the basketball. Ricky was so stunned I thought he was close to getting a tech. How about Ricky's scoring, though? Looks very comfortable in two specific areas. First, he loves going left and actually can finish left this year. I'm confident in that. Last night he made three pull up, mid-range jumpers going right off a screen. Not an easy shot and he had much more arc than I've ever seen. Penberthy doing his job, I guess.

All in all, we need K-Mart back. We had very little threat of a three ball. Mo Williams, Andrew Wiggins and Thad Young are the only ones that I remember making a three.

Reading Cam's comment about how comfortable Ricky is going to his left reminded me of something I just became aware of this week. Maybe this is common knowledge, but it was news to me. Does everyone know that Ricky is left-handed? Yep, he writes with his left hand, which is generally the clearest definition of handedness. It explains to some extent why he favors driving to his left, and also his struggles with his right-handed jump shot.

I wonder why he became a right-handed shooter.

longstrangetrip wrote:Reading Cam's comment about how comfortable Ricky is going to his left reminded me of something I just became aware of this week. Maybe this is common knowledge, but it was news to me. Does everyone know that Ricky is left-handed? Yep, he writes with his left hand, which is generally the clearest definition of handedness. It explains to some extent why he favors driving to his left, and also his struggles with his right-handed jump shot.

I wonder why he became a right-handed shooter.

I can relate to that. I write left-handed, but shoot right-handed. I didn't know he was the same. Even though it's just pickup (serious pickup) ball, I finish better lefty than I do righty as well.

For me, laying up lefty just feels more natural, and I definitely lay it up softer as well. Sometimes with my right hand I'll find myself clanking the ball hard off the glass without meaning to.

Sounds close to Ricky, though at a much higher level.