Minnesota Sports Forum

Just one game but alot of the same symptoms can be seen.

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Nothing about Zach Randolph?

That guy is still a beast. He set the tone down the stretch tonight.

As noted, Memphis is a vet team. Minnesota is young. Minnesota is going to have to learn how to win grind-it-out games like this yet.

Yeah and remember how Gasol was too slow to keep up with Towns and all that in preseason? Yeah dude was a beast. Green was terrific and they ALL hit a 3 right?

Green played an outstanding game.

25/7 and Wiggins gets ripped for not playing better lol. He was the best guy on the team tonight because Towns disappeared after the 1st quarter.

khans2k5 wrote:25/7 and Wiggins gets ripped for not playing better lol. He was the best guy on the team tonight because Towns disappeared after the 1st quarter.

Definitely was. Rather efficient 25 too. Of course, it was the bench yet again that failed us. 81 pts from starters, 17 from the bench led by our rookie with 8 of them.

Duke13 wrote:The problem offensively was the lack of passing, absolutely zero ball movement most of the night. Mainly 1:1 basketball. We have players capable of making tough shots but not the way to play. Wig and KAT were guilty of this all night. I don't think its selfishness but more lack of experience. They rarely moved the ball from on side of the court to the other. No point in having shooters like Rush or Belly if the offense, meaning the players don't create shots for them. Aldridge is the one guy tonight who made a couple nice passes to open shooters, he's actually very good at that. I think the assist totals were the same for similar but that doesn't tell the story.

Yeah, that's what I noticed too...at least after the initial unbelievable run. At the start of the game the Wolves were moving the ball extraordinarily will, and making their wide open shots. After the first 5 minutes the offense was so good that I was prepared to write in Thibs for president. But for the rest of the game they (and especially Wig and KAT, as you said) regressed to the same one-on-one ball they played last year. They have some terrific 1 in 1 players, so there will be nights they can be successful with this offense, but they could be so much better if they learn to move the ball around.

I'm disappointed to hear about the lack of ball movement. That's something Thibs stresses and I saw really good ball movement in the two preseason games I saw at Target Center. Bad habits are hard to break and it seems these guys will have to keep working on breaking last season's tendency towards little or no ball movement on offensive. No doubt Thibs will keep working on this.

monsterpile wrote:

TheFuture wrote:

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 one perimeter foul on Lavine was weird though.

That's the NBA sometimes. You can hack, shove, push down in the paint... but you can't get too close to a guy on the perimeter. I'm fine with the touch fouls out there to set a tone when a team isn't over the limit yet.

But to give a team 2 easy points in that situation... meh.

I am not sure I should start anymore Wolves GDT threads for a while.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

TheFuture wrote:

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 one perimeter foul on Lavine was weird though.

That's the NBA sometimes. You can hack, shove, push down in the paint... but you can't get too close to a guy on the perimeter. I'm fine with the touch fouls out there to set a tone when a team isn't over the limit yet.

But to give a team 2 easy points in that situation... meh.

Just to be clear I am not suggesting the officiating stole the game or it wasn't fair. They made some good calls on plays that usually go the other way for both teams. Considering it was the first regular season game and it takes everyone a bit of one to round into form it wasn't a bad officiated game. I just thought based on how they were letting them play on both ends that one was an odd call. It was kinda one of those "man that was a tough call" where it was a foul but considering the situation it was something that might not have been called etc. Of course Rubio should have been called for a few muggings earlier so it evens out. Both teams had been pretty physical even on the perimeter. The Wolves didn't adjust to the calls. They don't give up on this game which should be considered. I've seen this team get blown up in games like this. Again the Wolves played like a young team that hasn't been there before getting rattled by the other team's defense, hard play and officiating that was certainly "letting them play". They gotta be better. It was one game. Time to learn and move on.

bleedspeed177 wrote:I am not sure I should start anymore Wolves GDT threads for a while.

Time to fire up that "Bleed is a bust" thread.