Minnesota Sports Forum

Here is my assessment of the game.

Towns finally was hitting shots. He D was better but obviously he picked up some fouls I'm just happy he looked like a good offensive player again.

Edwards had a nice night. He had some pretty impressive defensive possessions and maybe as importantly didn't look lost much. The Dallas announcers were impressed with him. He take some perimeter jumpers but he was still attacking too. He improved every game in preseason.

Okogie finally showed offf his defense making some plays on Luka and also hit some 3's. He also had a dumb play or 2 but it was a good outing.

Beasley is playing with extremes effort. He looks a little stronger this year in that he is very toned. He held up one time went Luka tried to Bully him. Idk if Beasley will be a god defender this year but he is busting his ass off trying. Idk if he will keep up that level of effort all year but he looks like a guy that can at least not be a liability. On offense he does a lot of nice things gets good shots for himself runs the floor etc. he had 11 rebounds in this game. He plays with an edge. I'm liking what I have seen out of him on the floor making me glad that we brought him back. We will see if he can keep up some of these positives.

Layman keeps looking solid and if he does he is a bargain contract and a guy that will help the team in whatever role he ends up in. It was good to see him get minutes at the 3 tonight.

RHJ looked solid. It looks like his shot is a little bit better now. I'm not expecting anything amazing but it's worth watching. He plays like a big is a little undersized but is quick like a guard. He could end up being the guy that needs to be next to Towns. I know he can't shot but it feels like we got a James Johnson type guy for dirt cheap. I'm in on starting him next to Towns. I'm not worrying about Juancho (Very meh tonight) making more money If RHJ is better Rosas can look smart by signing him to a vet min deal and ultimately winning more games. Juancho can add shooting to the bench which may need it.

Naz Reid has some misadventures but it was his first game back. He looks slimmer and it's great to see him out there. He looks like he belongs I'm sure Ed Davis will play some but I think Reid will get to play behind Towns if what we saw tonight is an indication of his ability to play.

Culver continues to looks like a solid player. 7-7 from the line is big. He doesn't need to be a star but he is looking good out there.

Nowell was playing pretty good D and again had a solid offensive night and did a solid job running the point. He didn't ever panic and dribbled through pressure. That bank midrange shot was likely on purpose. I love it.

McDaniels continues to impress with his quickness and length. He panicked throwing away a pass but stayed within himself.

Vanderbilt I can see the talent but he looks like at least a year away to me. Send him to Iowa for another year.

This was a fun game overall. The Wolves seemed to remember how to play basketball and the young guys were clamping down on defense to finish the game. I'm interested to see Hagans play at Iowa. He might be making Opposing guards life difficult.

Also Luka whines a fair amount maybe some of it was justified but His Technical was overdue IMO and the Dallas announcers said he had been trying to get one for a while. Lol

KiwiMatt wrote:Didn't watch the game but looking at the box score Culver was a team high + 25, with 18 points, 2/3 from behind the arc with 2 steals and 2 blocks. Promising. Meanwhile Okogie was a - 29!

Okogie wasn't nearly as bad as his numbers suggest. In fact, I thought he played well tonight. Those plus/minus numbers can be really deceiving as a single-game indicator of a player's performance.

Culver played really well as his numbers suggest.

Monster - I agree with your takes. The only thing I'll add is that McDaniels looks like he has a long way to go before he's really NBA ready. I'd actually say he has further to go than Vanderbilt. But I see the talent and it's very intriguing.

lipoli390 wrote:Monster - I agree with your takes. The only thing I'll add is that McDaniels looks like he has a long way to go before he's really NBA ready. I'd actually say he has further to go than Vanderbilt. But I see the talent and it's very intriguing.

Don't disagree with you McDaniels but you can see why I like him so much. He has all the physical tools to be a damn good player if he can put it together. Legit could be a homerun and if you have a shot at hitting a homerun in the late 1st round I think you have to take it. Obviously he could strike out but I like what I have seen from him. Compared to Tyrell Terry I am really worried about him (Obviously it was one game) but he dosen't look like he has the body type or athleticism to succeed in the NBA. I mean the last play in regulation he beat his guy with a turnaround but he is so small he got his shot blocked even though he was able to create space.

kekgeek1 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Monster - I agree with your takes. The only thing I'll add is that McDaniels looks like he has a long way to go before he's really NBA ready. I'd actually say he has further to go than Vanderbilt. But I see the talent and it's very intriguing.

Don't disagree with you McDaniels but you can see why I like him so much. He has all the physical tools to be a damn good player if he can put it together. Legit could be a homerun and if you have a shot at hitting a homerun in the late 1st round I think you have to take it. Obviously he could strike out but I like what I have seen from him. Compared to Tyrell Terry I am really worried about him (Obviously it was one game) but he dosen't look like he has the body type or athleticism to succeed in the NBA. I mean the last play in regulation he beat his guy with a turnaround but he is so small he got his shot blocked even though he was able to create space.

Honestly Vanderbilt didn't look very good at all in preseason but it's certainly possible he is more ready than he looked. Meanwhile McDaniels I might be willing to throw him at someone defensively and see if he could do something. His physical profile and ability to cover a lot of ground is pretty impressive. He looks more ready to do shit (4 blocks in 3 games and 20 total mins) than I was expecting. These are obviously both limited sample sizes.

Just be clear I still like Vanderbilt I'm not like wanting to cut him or anything he just looks like a guy that may take a while yet. That's fine especially since we added a similar player that's ready to go contribute right now in RHJ to the roster.

I'm still out of town so couldn't see the game, but this was exactly what this team needed going into the regular season. This win was every bit as significant as the very disappointing loss in game 2. Dallas is a good team, and the fact that Luka Doncic played 27 minutes tells me that Dallas wasn't just going through the motions. Luka is a marvelous player, but he missed more shots than Edwards and Reid and I agree his whining is annoying. To revive a post in another thread, tonight Luka sleeps with the fishes.

We all want wins, but first we all want to see this team bring energy every night. And from reading this thread, it sounds like our guys (and especially our young guys) really brought it tonight. I think a .500 record is where this team ends up this season, but they still could be very fun to watch.

The Okogie -29 is confusing to me. Yes, plus/minus is a messy stat, but we do see the same guys consistently at the top and bottom of the list every year, so it does seem to have some validity. I note that Josh's line tonight was quite good- 8-2-2 with a steal, 2 blocks and no TO's in 18 minutes. Not to mention 2-3 on threes. How the hell does that impressive line turn into an absurdly bad -29 in only 18 minutes? What did you guys see?

I'm just reading Robson's twitter, and I may have an answer to my question about Josh's plus/minus. It looks like Ryan wanted Josh on Luka and so he was on the court much of the time Luka was, and that Luka's plus 21 is the mirror image of Josh's -29. Combine that with how ridiculously hot it sounds like Dallas was at the start of the game, and it softens both Josh's and Luka's number. I'm not going to worry about Josh's -29, because the rest of his line is solid.

FNG wrote:I'm still out of town so couldn't see the game, but this was exactly what this team needed going into the regular season. This win was every bit as significant as the very disappointing loss in game 2. Dallas is a good team, and the fact that Luka Doncic played 27 minutes tells me that Dallas wasn't just going through the motions. Luka is a marvelous player, but he missed more shots than Edwards and Reid and I agree his whining is annoying. To revive a post in another thread, tonight Luka sleeps with the fishes.

We all want wins, but first we all want to see this team bring energy every night. And from reading this thread, it sounds like our guys (and especially our young guys) really brought it tonight. I think a .500 record is where this team ends up this season, but they still could be very fun to watch.

The Okogie -29 is confusing to me. Yes, plus/minus is a messy stat, but we do see the same guys consistently at the top and bottom of the list every year, so it does seem to have some validity. I note that Josh's line tonight was quite good- 8-2-2 with a steal, 2 blocks and no TO's in 18 minutes. Not to mention 2-3 on threes. How the hell does that impressive line turn into an absurdly bad -29 in only 18 minutes? What did you guys see?

Dallas was up significantly when they played their starters... up 15 entering the 4th. They scored 30+ points in each of the first three quarters and then played only reserves in the 4th quarter... scoring 16 points. Even made Boban the key player down the stretch as he was playing alongside three rookies... they even devised a play for Boban to win the game on a three pointer.

There's very little to take away from this exhibition game. The Wolves weren't as good as a hot-shooting Dallas team. And the defense struggled for the 3rd straight game vs. starters.

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Although, the Wolves deeper reserves are better than Dallas. I'm not seeing it with Vanderbilt and McDaniels. They're both so raw and SO far away... and that's with them playing against D League guys. Meh. But while the Wolves have a glut of mediocre to average wings... there are a lot of them. And I think we'll see that pay off over the course of the season in a year when depth will be very important. The Wolves have about 10 or 11 players who can do things to help the team win on a good night.

I agree that Dallas really outplayed our "starters" at the beginning of the game...it was difficult to watch on my ESPN gamecast because Dallas just wouldn't miss. But I would argue that Ryan didn't start the guys most of us would have started, so it's not surprising some of our "bench" players shined when they came in. The Wolves were without one of their max players tonight. Layman starting at PF is a joke...he simply cannot rebound or defend his position, and notably begin to play well at SF after Ryan brought in Juancho so Layman could move to his natural position. And if anyone on this board thinks Okogie is going to our starting SF, they are clearly in the minority. So at least 3 of our guys on the court against Dallas' starting lineup will likely not start many games this season- only KAT and either Ricky or Beasley were true starters tonight.

I recognize that this is largely a critical board and that's fine- God knows this franchise has given us much to be critical about. But I'm confused as to how many negative conclusions were formed after the Memphis losses, while this impressive preseason win is deemed by some to be meaningless. Isn't there a little inconsistency there?

Finney-Smith, Hardaway, and Richardson (starters) and Kleber (early off the bench) made 14-19 of 3's. That pretty much explains the +/- difference and why our starters got beat. And at least half of those 3's were very well contested.

So this wasn't a situation where our starters were throwing the ball away or constantly getting beat off the dribble. Carlisle and Dallas is just one of these teams that can take a bunch of middling guys, one star, and squeeze a bunch of wins out of them. I'd love to see what he could do with our roster.