Minnesota Sports Forum

The Spurs just tricked us into their tempo. It's the Pop way, his whole team is trained not to rush anything, not to panic. The game was slow, hard to watch at points. But they completely forced the action by our rebounding us and playing better D on the ball.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Teague's problem was defense.

Yes. I can't get myself to conclude that the subbing Teague back in for Tyus down the stretch would have changed the outcome of the game, although I get the argument that Teague would have been the better choice at that point of the game. Overall, our defense was good enough to win. And it's not. Hard to figure out why we lost. We were outrebounded by 8. We missed shots we should make. And we left 6 points at the line.

The good news tonight?

1. The play of Belly, Crawford and Tyus off the bench -- especially Belly

2. Wiggins 3-point shooting and overall play. He had some defensive lapses, but overall I thought he was pretty good defensively. And he showed promise on the boards. He needs to be more consistent at the line, but at least he got to the line.

The bad news? Just about everything else.

1. The team's overall poor shooting.
2. KAT's and Teague's defense
4. The poor play of Taj and Gorgui.

Note: Ricky had 9 points, 5 rebounds, 10 assists and 2 steals for Utah.

kekgeek1 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:I think overall tonight was positive. Our bench showed up and kept the game close. Our starters clearly have room for improvement which at least signals it can get better than this. There were a few worrisome signs. Wiggins still missed too many FT's. Towns got handled by LA and struggled on both sides of the ball. But it's game one. We lost to a good team on the road. Unfortunately it looks like there's still some learning to be had.

+1

And Wiggins shooting from 3. Dude had 26 points in 30 minutes and he did it pretty easily.

thedoper wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Teague's problem was defense.

Cool would you be willing to expand on what you saw from him on that end?

Sure Monster, I saw several things. He didn't bring enough energy, he was slow to rotate, and he had trouble keeping his man in front of him. And then he didn't get us going with tempo on the transition to offense.

He does seem more casual moving it the other way. I like his timing on looking for his shots, he knows when to shoot in the game to keep balance. I agree with your assessment of his D, he does some good things but he needs to get a bit more jacked for the whole time he is out there.

The rap on Teague has always been his tendency to appear disinterested and passive on the defensive end. But I was especially disappointed in what Cool identified as Teague's failure to set the tempo with energy offensively. I like Teague's ability to penetrate and score. But tonight I missed Ricky -- his defensive intensity, his rebounding his steals, his passing and his overall energy. Teague has to play better.

I really hope we don't have a Ricky v Teague debate every night here. Every time a pg torched Rubio we would hear about how guarding 1s is a team effort. There was no difference this night, the rotations once Murray got around Teague were God awful. The real difference in the Spurs game was fundamental rebounding and the 11 blocks they had on us. Teague was mediocre, much like Rubio.

lipoli390 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Teague's problem was defense.

Yes. I can't get myself to conclude that the subbing Teague back in for Tyus down the stretch would have changed the outcome of the game, although I get the argument that Teague would have been the better choice at that point of the game. Overall, our defense was good enough to win. And it's not. Hard to figure out why we lost. We were outrebounded by 8. We missed shots we should make. And we left 6 points at the line.

The good news tonight?

1. The play of Belly, Crawford and Tyus off the bench -- especially Belly

2. Wiggins 3-point shooting and overall play. He had some defensive lapses, but overall I thought he was pretty good defensively. And he showed promise on the boards. He needs to be more consistent at the line, but at least he got to the line.

The bad news? Just about everything else.

1. The team's overall poor shooting.
2. KAT's and Teague's defense
4. The poor play of Taj and Gorgui.

Note: Ricky had 9 points, 5 rebounds, 10 assists and 2 steals for Utah.

And a -14. (Just saying if we used it to make him look good with the wolves we have to do it the other way)

kekgeek1 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Teague's problem was defense.

Yes. I can't get myself to conclude that the subbing Teague back in for Tyus down the stretch would have changed the outcome of the game, although I get the argument that Teague would have been the better choice at that point of the game. Overall, our defense was good enough to win. And it's not. Hard to figure out why we lost. We were outrebounded by 8. We missed shots we should make. And we left 6 points at the line.

The good news tonight?

1. The play of Belly, Crawford and Tyus off the bench -- especially Belly

2. Wiggins 3-point shooting and overall play. He had some defensive lapses, but overall I thought he was pretty good defensively. And he showed promise on the boards. He needs to be more consistent at the line, but at least he got to the line.

The bad news? Just about everything else.

1. The team's overall poor shooting.
2. KAT's and Teague's defense
4. The poor play of Taj and Gorgui.

Note: Ricky had 9 points, 5 rebounds, 10 assists and 2 steals for Utah.

And a -14. (Just saying if we used it to make him look good with the wolves we have to do it the other way)

I believe Rudy Gobert was also -14 tonight. It's a highly misleading stat. Ricky was more productive tonight than Teague. It's just a fact. I would have rather had Ricky's productivity than what we got from Teague tonight. But let's be clear, this season isn't going to turn on whether we have Ricky or Teague as our starting PG.

We lost tonight because we were dominated on the boards and didn't shoot the way we need to. Taj and Gorgui between them tonight hit 4 of 16 shots -- nearly all of them shot to mid-range shots. That's not acceptable. Neither one blocked a shot and both were repeatedly torched on the defensive end and didn't box out consistently. If those two guys play that way very often, this team will be in deep trouble no matter how well Teague plays. And Bazz can't go 1-6 off the bench like he did tonight.

This game's behind us now. We open at home Friday night against the Jazz. The Wolves have to win that one -- no excuses. Then it's on the road to OKC. That would be a great game to steal on the road. Then it's back home against the Pacers. We should win two of our next three and end up with a 2-2 record after 4 games. It's a long season after that and we'll see what happens.

lipoli390 wrote:

thedoper wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Teague's problem was defense.

Cool would you be willing to expand on what you saw from him on that end?

Sure Monster, I saw several things. He didn't bring enough energy, he was slow to rotate, and he had trouble keeping his man in front of him. And then he didn't get us going with tempo on the transition to offense.

He does seem more casual moving it the other way. I like his timing on looking for his shots, he knows when to shoot in the game to keep balance. I agree with your assessment of his D, he does some good things but he needs to get a bit more jacked for the whole time he is out there.

The rap on Teague has always been his tendency to appear disinterested and passive on the defensive end. But I was especially disappointed in what Cool identified as Teague's failure to set the tempo with energy offensively. I like Teague's ability to penetrate and score. But tonight I missed Ricky -- his defensive intensity, his rebounding his steals, his passing and his overall energy. Teague has to play better.

That's not true about Teague's defense.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nba.com/amp/hawks/features/believe-it-jeff-teague-one-best-defensive-point-guards-basketball

looks like every other Wolves team that has disappointed us. Can't buy stock in this team.

And Evan Turner was +43 tonight in just 25 minutes so I guess we should just give him the MVP already right?