Minnesota Sports Forum

Entertaining game. Without McDaniels, any win is a bonus. Hopefully we play well on Friday.

BTW: these are the type of games we need ANT to learn from and get under his belt.

2 FG in the last 1030 of game time

kekgeek wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:03 am 2 FG in the last 1030 of game time

Just brutal
Our engine goes where Ant goes
We stalled tonight

WallyBall wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:05 am

kekgeek wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:03 am 2 FG in the last 1030 of game time

Just brutal
Our engine goes where Ant goes
We stalled tonight

It’s pretty clear he was hurt after that fall. Maybe he should not have been out there. Hope he is good to go on Friday.

For all the talk of how players get in Ant's way, Ant doesn't drive nearly as much as people think he does.

Another 4th qtr blown lead. Experts at it since the Grizz series last year. Absolutely ridiculously how often the team chokes.

On the other hand pretty surprised they had a shot at winning this considering they were without Jaden, Rudy, Naz and Edwards…

The story of this loss is simple. One of our two all-star caliber players hit only 3 of 17 FG attempts and 0-9 from behind the arc. And our backup PG went 0-5. In contrast, both of the Lakers’ top players put up good offensive numbers and so did their other PG, Schroeder. The Wolves defense was good. KAT and Conley produced. If Ant had simply had a bad shooting night rather than a horrendous one, the Wolves would have won in regulation.

Ant is 21 years old, so we need to cut him some slack. But he can’t have performances like this in big games going forward if the Wolves are ever going to be a contender. KAT is a terrific #2 with a +19 performance tonight. Conley was really good tonight and has been terrific since he got here. But he’s 36 years old. Ant has to get better and the Wolves need to find a long-term replacement for Conley. That’s it. The rest will take care of itself if those two things happen.

Ok, Ant's performance was inexplicable. Maybe the injury hurt his shoulder/head. But the passivity and indecision was really concerning. The breakdown in offense in the 4th quarter rests quite a bit on Finch, I think. He needed to come up with something better than that.

On the whole, I gotta say that there was a lot to like here from guys like Conley, Prince, NAW, KAT early, even Nowell. Overall, I liked the energy early on. Just awesome that we were able to get up by 15 on the road.

But yeah, that offensive collapse in the 4th was just insane. A complete failure of decision-making on the floor and from the coach honestly. How in the world could we NOT have gotten Ant the ball while driving? How did we not get him running the floor on the break (except for that one bucket)? Why in the WORLD did he just pull up when he could've run the floor with a 2 on 1? Why did Finch not draw up some actual offense instead of just giving the ball to a guy and expecting them to somehow make something happen? Just embarrassing. You can tell that we have the ability to play really well, but we're holding ourselves back.

Ant shot 28% last year in the 4th Q in the playoffs, no showed tonight. He’s young but it’s a trend to at least put in the back of your mind

60WinTim wrote: ↑Wed Apr 12, 2023 12:02 am Entertaining game. Without McDaniels, any win is a bonus. Hopefully we play well on Friday.

BTW: these are the type of games we need ANT to learn from and get under his belt.

Exactly, Tim. Ant’s a very young player learning a lot of lessons. I think the Wolves might have missed Naz tonight more than they missed Jaden. Our defense was fine and Prince shot the ball well. We needed the offensive lift in the 4th that Naz could have given us. And how about our backup PG hitting at least one or two of his five shots?