K-Mart is back - Wolves vs Celtics - GDT

[Lipoli390]

Zach starting to realize he can get to the rim whenever the fuck he wants to. Nice finish with the left there. Needs to continue to work on that because it seriously is there whenever he wants it.

Great point, Cam. A huge key for these young rookies is confidence and recognizing what they are capable of. We've seen it with Wiggins too. Too often he doesn't seem to realize just how good he is. But I'm not surprised. These guys are 19 year olds who started this season in the NBA just one year after their high school graduations. In Zach's case, he played limited minutes his one year in college and none of those minutes came at the PG position hes now being asked to master at the NBA level.

When Zach and Andrew fully recognize what they're capable of and develop an NBA swagger, they will become an incredible duo.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Peculiar stat: Thad Young is 31-35 at the free throw line this month. He had largely, and surprisingly, been poor at the line previous to January. Then all of a sudden he's shooting 89%? What? :dizzy:

[kekgeek]

Peculiar stat: Thad Young is 31-35 at the free throw line this month. He had largely, and surprisingly, been poor at the line previous to January. Then all of a sudden he's shooting 87%? What? :dizzy:

The whole wolves have been like that, that is a huge strength for the wolves now and now Kmart is back and this came out of nowhere

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Just as weird: Andrew Wiggins is 1-14 from behind the arc after going 4-5 against Denver. Talk about heating up and then rapidly cooling. We need those shots to fall for him. Hopefully this rough stretch doesn't continue.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Last one: The Wolves have held their opponent under 100 points four out of the last five games since Pekovic returned. Previous to that, Minnesota had only held their opponents under 100 three times in their last 30 games. Defensive presence? :thumb:

[GymRat [enjin:6592663]]

Does anybody have offensive and defensive efficiency ratings since Pek returned? We have a lot of positional movement right now so it's all probably just noise and too small a sample, but I anticipate our net rating to change a lot over the next few weeks as we figure out how to reintegrate the injured.

[SameOldNudityDrew]

I'm liking the Dieng Pek combo at the 4 and 5 with Thad at the 3 and Wiggins the 2. And I'm also interested to see Lorenzo Brown out there with LaVine at the 2. Brown looked like the backup PG we've needed since Rubio went down.

[worldK]

Pek has really make a difference with his return. Just eating up space inside on both ends and giving us another scoring threat in the game. Dieng moving to the 4 and youngnto the 3 has madebus win the rebounding battle the last few games and that certainly helps the team.

If we are going to get okafor in the draft then dieng being able to play excel and start at the 4 is something that would be needed and something we are seeing him having a chance and trial at it. Imagine a pek/okafor center rotation with dieng at the 4. That would be tough for any team.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Does anybody have offensive and defensive efficiency ratings since Pek returned? We have a lot of positional movement right now so it's all probably just noise and too small a sample, but I anticipate our net rating to change a lot over the next few weeks as we figure out how to reintegrate the injured.

Ask and you shall receive! In the four games since Pek returned (the first of which he came off the bench), here are the results:

Ortg = 103 vs. 102 for the overall season (so slight improvement)
Drtg = 107.4 vs. 111.9 for the overall season (that's a pretty big improvement)

The key driver to the better defense? A lower Opponent eFG% (51.9% vs 54.3%) and better overall rebounding.

Yeah, Pek has made a difference. Even when he himself doesn't play well, he clears out space for rebounds and walls up defensively in a very strong position.

Oh, and the biggest beneficiary appears to be Gorgui, who is averaging 13.5 rebounds per game since Pek's return. No one should be surprised by this, as Pek's presence has given Gorgui the opportunity to match up against less physical opponents.

With a larger sample size, I want to isolate the Pek-Gorgui pairing specifically to see how we do as a team when they are on the court together. The early returns are encouraging.

[MikkeMan]

Ask and you shall receive! In the four games since Pek returned (the first of which he came off the bench), here are the results:

Ortg = 103 vs. 102 for the overall season (so slight improvement)
Drtg = 107.4 vs. 111.9 for the overall season (that's a pretty big improvement)

To be fair Wolves have already played 5 games after Pek returned to lineup.(Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Oklahoma and Boston) Based on my calculations their Ortg and Drtg have been in those games:

Ortg = 102.4 vs. 98.8 for the overall season (clear improvement)
Drtg = 109.4 vs. 110.5 for the overall season (slightly worse)

I guess you have taken your overall season numbers from basketball reference which explains difference to my numbers that are taken from NBA.com. I don't know exactly what is the difference in equation between those sites but it seems that basketball reference has constantly lower ratings for all teams.

Of course since sample size is small, we cannot make much conclusions yet but we can improve comparison by taking into account how those Wolves 5 opponents have been playing overall during this season.

Their average offensive rating for them has been 105.16 and average defensive rating has been 102.6. So during last 5 games Wolves defense has been 4.7 points worse than average defense and their offense has been 0.2 points worse than average NBA offense would have been.

Since average offensive (and defensive) rating of NBA team has been 102.9 points per 100 possessions, Wolves overall season Ortg has been 4.1 points worse than average and Drtg 6.5 points worse.

So their defense with Pek has improved 1.8 points and offense has improved 3.9 points.

Q's point that Pek's biggest effect has been improved defensive rebounding is great observation. Of course it is also greatly effected by the fact that Dieng has got minutes at four next to Pek. Anyway their defensive rebounding % has been 80.2 that is 7.4 percentiles higher than their overall season number. This is really good number since those five teams have taken overall 25.1% offensive rebounds that would have been 5.3 percentiles higher number than they managed to get against Wolves.

I found already some two man lineup numbers from basketball reference. Pek and Dieng have played now 67 minutes together and during that time Wolves have outscored their opponents 6.1 points per 100 possessions and outrebounded them 7.5%.