Minnesota Sports Forum

Or... play hard tonight knowing that Utah could very well keep certain players inactive tomorrow night in preparation for the trade deadline a day later.

Not sure the Timberwolves are in any position to be conceding games anyways. Don't think there's any chance of that happening.

Camden wrote:Or... play hard tonight knowing that Utah could very well keep certain players inactive tomorrow night in preparation for the trade deadline a day later.

Not sure the Timberwolves are in any position to be conceding games anyways. Don't think there's any chance of that happening.

Right....I'll take going all out and the 35% chance of winning against Denver and potentially a 40-60% chance of winning @ Utah (depending if they shelve guys) versus basically giving us a 0% chance of winning against Denver and a 45-65% chance of winning at Utah due to a few guys being a little more rested.

Q-was-here wrote:

Camden wrote:Or... play hard tonight knowing that Utah could very well keep certain players inactive tomorrow night in preparation for the trade deadline a day later.

Not sure the Timberwolves are in any position to be conceding games anyways. Don't think there's any chance of that happening.

Right....I'll take going all out and the 35% chance of winning against Denver and potentially a 40-60% chance of winning @ Utah (depending if they shelve guys) versus basically giving us a 0% chance of winning against Denver and a 45-65% chance of winning at Utah due to a few guys being a little more rested.

Fair point. ESPN actually gives the Wolves a 41% chance in Denver...surprising with an 8 1/2 spot.

Maybe our day-to-day guys aren't actually too hurt, but if they are, I'm still giving some of them (JMac for sure) a day off in one of the back to backs. I give us less than a 20% chance of going 2-0 in any scenario, and a very good chance of at least beating Utah with a rested roster. That's still the way I would strategize it. What would really piss me off would be to exhaust ourselves in a loss in Denver, and have nothing left in the tank the next night in SLC.. An 0-2 would be unfortunate.

(If the Wolves do go 2-0 on this mountain BTB, this post will disappear faster than a Shabazz Muhammad shot!)

FNG wrote:

Q-was-here wrote:

Camden wrote:Or... play hard tonight knowing that Utah could very well keep certain players inactive tomorrow night in preparation for the trade deadline a day later.

Not sure the Timberwolves are in any position to be conceding games anyways. Don't think there's any chance of that happening.

Right....I'll take going all out and the 35% chance of winning against Denver and potentially a 40-60% chance of winning @ Utah (depending if they shelve guys) versus basically giving us a 0% chance of winning against Denver and a 45-65% chance of winning at Utah due to a few guys being a little more rested.

Fair point. ESPN actually gives the Wolves a 41% chance in Denver...surprising with an 8 1/2 spot.

Maybe our day-to-day guys aren't actually too hurt, but if they are, I'm still giving some of them (JMac for sure) a day off in one of the back to backs. I give us less than a 20% chance of going 2-0 in any scenario, and a very good chance of at least beating Utah with a rested roster. That's still the way I would strategize it. What would really piss me off would be to exhaust ourselves in a loss in Denver, and have nothing left in the tank the next night in SLC.. An 0-2 would be unfortunate.

(If the Wolves do go 2-0 on this mountain BTB, this post will disappear faster than a Shabazz Muhammad shot!)

It would be interesting to game it out because I think mathematically you would be making a mistake. I'd need to know what the odds are of us winning @Utah in a back to back scenario like that given travel times, altitude etc. But let's just say it's 35% with not resting guys and 45% with resting guys. But the Denver odds go down to 20% with resting guys because they are so damn good.

Rest against Denver = (.2*1)+(.45*1) = .65 wins

Don't rest against Denver = (.4*1)+(.35*1) = .75 wins.

Again, depends on how much you think resting hurts us against Denver and helps us against Utah. But to me if we have a stats guru, they should be able to tell the coaches the best odds mathematically to pick up at least one win. My gut tells me you go all in on both games.

As a stellar statistician, mathematics maven and astute analytics rube... my data analysis reveals that legit playoff teams have won back-to-back road games 3,385 times over the past 24 seasons.

It's not THAT complicated. Try to win every game.

See what happens.

We are nowhere near a team that could strategically consider losing. Ant has lead the league in minutes and we are barely 500. Unfortunately for us, every game is a playoff game.

I think the "we're gonna go 2-0 in the mountains" guys will be happy...I see everyone at shootaround except maybe SloMo (doesn't mean he's not there). Let's go get 'em!

Nikola Jokic, Aaron Gordon, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are active tonight.

Jamal Murray is OUT.

If the team doctor clears you to play, I think you should be out there. You don't always have to play 35 minutes, but if you're healthy play.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:If the team doctor clears you to play, I think you should be out there. You don't always have to play 35 minutes, but if you're healthy play.

Not in 2023. Too much money is at stake.

Players know their stats and try to preserve them... more than most people probably realize.

Considering how stats-obsessed we are as a basketball community... should we be surprised?