Minnesota Sports Forum

The Beverley Effect has been tremendous. I was placing him in our starting lineup this offseason. Which has been a great switch, now if he can stay healthy for most of the year is the question. I think that's what was preventing many people from having him play as many minutes and role he has.

Jaden also struggled early on and the switch to Vando has also helped the defense with his immense energy and effort.

When you have both Vando and Bev you almost can't help but play with more energy and effort. You got two guys playing like that you can't let them down and be SAB's.

Tonight's win against the Heat demonstrates my point a bit. The offense was humming just fine with Malik Beasley in place for Patrick Beverley because the former was making the shots that he's expected to make (and then some).

The real eye-opener from those numbers earlier is the fact that the defense doesn't plummet with Beverley off the court. The scoring will be there because of the overall talent on the roster, but the defense being legitimate makes this team much better than we could have anticipated.

Camden wrote:Tonight's win against the Heat demonstrates my point a bit. The offense was humming just fine with Malik Beasley in place for Patrick Beverley because the former was making the shots that he's expected to make (and then some).

The real eye-opener from those numbers earlier is the fact that the defense doesn't plummet with Beverley off the court. The scoring will be there because of the overall talent on the roster, but the defense being legitimate makes this team much better than we could have anticipated.

I agree, Cam. As I mentioned in the GDT, Beverley has already changed the defensive culture of this team and that was apparent last night after Patrick went down.

Another think last night's gave illustrated was the importance of Beasley's shooting and the fact that his 3-point shot will eventually start falling at a near 40% rate consistent with his career stats, especially his more recent seasons. We can also see DLO getting his shot back. It's exciting to think about our offensive returning to the level we saw late last season along with the new defensive culture that's apparently taken root this season. But I think our offense can improve beyond what we saw late last season for at least a couple reasons. First, Beverley improves the team's offense as well with his 3-point shooting, ballhandling and high basketball IQ. Second, I have to believe that Prince will eventually recapture his 38% three-point shooting stroke.

Pat Bev is out against the Hornets. He has left abductor strain. Via Google it's about a 2 week timetable

kekgeek1 wrote:Pat Bev is out against the Hornets. He has left abductor strain. Via Google it's about a 2 week timetable

They're saying he'll be "re-evaluated" in 2 weeks. Sounds like it could be longer.

Well, we knew what we were getting into with him, so no one should be surprised. Jordan McLaughlin has been flat out terrible this season. In fact, he's only gotten worse since his rookie year. He needs to step up his play or else we'll be seeing Nowell out there bricking shots instead. Not good.

I gotta believe most of us were heartened by the defense in the Philly game with PatBev on the sidelines, especially compared to the bad effort the night before. One area of concern though is the change in 3-point percentage allowed since Beverley went down. The Wolves led the league prior to charlotte, only giving up 30.1%. But Charlotte made 23 out of 40, and Philly made 35.3% last night (not bad, but a drop off from prior games. Is the change because of the absence of Pat? Maybe not. The NBA's website reports that the Wolves are giving up the most "wide-open" threes in the league at an absurd 18.6 per game (that surprised me, by the way...it just looks to me like we're defending the perimeter better). But opponents are only making 33.4% of these wide-open shots prior to charlotte, third worst in the league. It seems logical that there will be some progression to the mean in this area (theoretically there's no reason for a large variance in wide-open percentage given up). I've been giving PatBev (and a revived defensive DLo) a lot of credit for our defensive improvement, but it looks like we have also had a lot of very good luck so far with opponents just missing shots.

FNG wrote:I gotta believe most of us were heartened by the defense in the Philly game with PatBev on the sidelines, especially compared to the bad effort the night before. One area of concern though is the change in 3-point percentage allowed since Beverley went down. The Wolves led the league prior to charlotte, only giving up 30.1%. But Charlotte made 23 out of 40, and Philly made 35.3% last night (not bad, but a drop off from prior games. Is the change because of the absence of Pat? Maybe not. The NBA's website reports that the Wolves are giving up the most "wide-open" threes in the league at an absurd 18.6 per game (that surprised me, by the way...it just looks to me like we're defending the perimeter better). But opponents are only making 33.4% of these wide-open shots prior to charlotte, third worst in the league. It seems logical that there will be some progression to the mean in this area (theoretically there's no reason for a large variance in wide-open percentage given up). I've been giving PatBev (and a revived defensive DLo) a lot of credit for our defensive improvement, but it looks like we have also had a lot of very good luck so far with opponents just missing shots.

I think this is largely true. Our defensive scheme is meant to prevent the ball handler on pick and rolls from going downhill at KAT or Naz and to largely get the ball out of their hands. This often leads to open 3's because if the initial ball handler gets rid of it quick and cleanly, there is usually a scramble to cover the rolling big, which means someone is left open beyond the arc. It was only a matter of time before guys started making shots against us.

Jon Krawczynski noted that the Wolves and Patrick Beverley's representation have been in contact regarding a contract extension. Minnesota would like to keep him. That should be no surprise.