Minnesota Sports Forum

rules dont apply to harden.

the travels, the blatant push off to get separation..etc..

hopefully (but unlikely) we can get some call when we come back home.

crazy-canuck wrote:Timberwolves now 2 for 18 from the field this season when tied or down 3 or less in the last 10 seconds of games.

Jimmy Butler is 0 for 12 in such spots.

Whether it's been execution or play calling (probably a mix of both) that's not good.

Ouch.

I didn't think Jimmy gave us the best chance to tie on the last play. He as another poster said, looks to be still not 100%. A dish to Teague would have been the best play I think. Teague has shown to be clutch and was playing well down the stretch. That or a pass to KAT who doesn't shoot enough 3's. I think he underestimates his ability to hit contested 3's. Especially on the switch throughout the game, he has a Paul or Harden on him. Shouldn't he just shoot over them?

Maybe that will come over time.

Wiggins with his athleticism would also probably get a better look I think (even though he shoots a low percentage).

LATE DVR SUMMARY:

- KAT. So we all had the same idea. Get him touches. Take advantage of Gordon, Paul and even PJ Tucker on him. DUH! The TNT crew, in-arena and in-studio were all over this. So... for part of the 4th, I flipped over to the other DVR recording of the FSN crew.

"They're baiting you into throwing it to the post... don't do it."
- Jim Peterson after they threw it to Gibson who turned it over trying to hit a cutter.

Anybody else watch the local broadcast? I'm sure there's more context here. I think it's critical to the discussion... because it seems like 99% of us and other viewers and NBA minds are wondering why they didn't punish the mismatches.

- End of game. Rinse. Repeat. It's junior high execution. Brutal.

- Officiating. It can get worse. It will get worse. This is the NBA. Superstars are great for business. This is the model for 25+ years. It's not changing any time soon. We can keep whining about it (many of us did in the 2004 series vs. LA... and the 2003 series. And... you get the idea)... but it's not changing.

- It looked like the Wolves overplayed Harden's left hand... but he still got to his spots. He's so good driving that direction... and even when he goes right, he ends up going back to his left most of the time.

- This game only gives Rose confidence... and Thibs more confidence in Rose. Oh. oh.

- I rarely want PGs to shoot more. I want Teague to shoot more. Be more aggressive. It worked in the 4th when he went at PJ Tucker for being a whiny punk. As noted previously, Teague's indecision in the playoffs cost those Hawks teams previously, too.

- Houston WILL shoot better moving forward. And Chris Paul had a TERRIBLE game. He's still an All NBA level player... arguably the 2nd best player in this series. I expect him to play like it next game. That's not good for the Wolves.

- They had a winnable game against an underachieving team. Didn't steal the win. Have to get those...

bleedspeed177 wrote:I just watched these highlights.

http://www.1500espn.com/wolves-2/2018/04/barkley-timberwolves-theyve-got-one-dumbest-teams-ive-ever-seen/

I read the reader comments. I got a kick out of the comment by a guy named Steve Jensen who dismissively referred to Barkley as being dumb as a box of rocks. What's funny is that he made that comment after attributing the Wolves problems to youth. I'd say "dumb" is thinking that youth was at the root of our 29-year old veteran point guard's failure to get the ball to KAT in mismatch situations. Barkley is Einstein compared to this Steve Jensen guy. Barkley may not be super articulate, but he's not dumb. And he wasn't alone in his assessment either.

Note -- I shouldn't put it all on Teague. He was one of several primary ball-handlers for the Wolves last night. The others were Butler, Crawford and Rose -- all experienced near 30 or over age 30 veterans. Yes, KAT seemed overwhelmed early by the moment. But he got his bearings back by the second half. More importantly, the failure to get the ball to players in mismatch situations is on the coach and primary ballhandlers, not so much on the guys (mainly KAT) who didn't get the ball in those situations.

Just got done watching. Brutal. We had a chance to steal one with how bad the Rockets played (except Harden and Capela) but we matched their shittiness. Ugh. There's no way they miss this many 3 pointers again in this series.

Quick note. Defending the Capela-Harden pick and roll will be the key to whether we can make this a series. Their 3 point shots will either fall or they won't, but they just brutalized us on that Harden-Capela pick and roll, especially in the first half. Harden is so freaking good at deciding whether to shoot or toss up the alley-oop, and even if he doesn't draw the foul and misses the shot, Capela crashes the glass and gets the putback so often.

So what's the solution?

I'm not sure, but I think we have GOT to box out Capela after the pick and have the other guy commit to stopping Harden. There has to be absolutely clear communication on who will do what, and those guys have to commit. So many times tonight we got screwed on that. It was usually Towns who either hesitated to commit to defending Harden because he was afraid of the pass or it didn't matter because the other guy (sometimes Wiggins, Butler, even Teague and Rose) didn't box out Capela and keep him away from the rim at all costs because that guy was trying to chase down Harden with no real chance of making his shot harder.

It doesn't come down to any one defender. It's really a systematic challenge. Thibs has to meet it if we're going to make this a series.

Ugh, just a gut wrenching game to watch down the stretch.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:Just got done watching. Brutal. We had a chance to steal one with how bad the Rockets played (except Harden and Capela) but we matched their shittiness. Ugh. There's no way they miss this many 3 pointers again in this series.

Quick note. Defending the Capela-Harden pick and roll will be the key to whether we can make this a series. Their 3 point shots will either fall or they won't, but they just brutalized us on that Harden-Capela pick and roll, especially in the first half. Harden is so freaking good at deciding whether to shoot or toss up the alley-oop, and even if he doesn't draw the foul and misses the shot, Capela crashes the glass and gets the putback so often.

So what's the solution?

I'm not sure, but I think we have GOT to box out Capela after the pick and have the other guy commit to stopping Harden. There has to be absolutely clear communication on who will do what, and those guys have to commit. So many times tonight we got screwed on that. It was usually Towns who either hesitated to commit to defending Harden because he was afraid of the pass or it didn't matter because the other guy (sometimes Wiggins, Butler, even Teague and Rose) didn't box out Capela and keep him away from the rim at all costs because that guy was trying to chase down Harden with no real chance of making his shot harder.

It doesn't come down to any one defender. It's really a systematic challenge. Thibs has to meet it if we're going to make this a series.

Ugh, just a gut wrenching game to watch down the stretch.

Yes, it was tough to watch. But I like the way our guys competed. And once KAT got over what looked like some initial stage fright, he played pretty well and Capela slowed down. It was clearly a game we could have stolen. I doubt Houston will give us another opportunity like this the rest of the series, but hopefully I'm wrong. One thing for sure. We're not going to beat the Rockets scoring 101 points -- EVER! We'll have to do a better job defending Houston's pick & roll, but as we all know, the Rockets won't miss as may threes as they missed last night. So you can count on the Rockets scoring at least 110 points the rest of the series. The Wolves will probably have to score 112+ to beat them - more likely 115-120.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:Just got done watching. Brutal. We had a chance to steal one with how bad the Rockets played (except Harden and Capela) but we matched their shittiness. Ugh. There's no way they miss this many 3 pointers again in this series.

Quick note. Defending the Capela-Harden pick and roll will be the key to whether we can make this a series. Their 3 point shots will either fall or they won't, but they just brutalized us on that Harden-Capela pick and roll, especially in the first half. Harden is so freaking good at deciding whether to shoot or toss up the alley-oop, and even if he doesn't draw the foul and misses the shot, Capela crashes the glass and gets the putback so often.

So what's the solution?

I'm not sure, but I think we have GOT to box out Capela after the pick and have the other guy commit to stopping Harden. There has to be absolutely clear communication on who will do what, and those guys have to commit. So many times tonight we got screwed on that. It was usually Towns who either hesitated to commit to defending Harden because he was afraid of the pass or it didn't matter because the other guy (sometimes Wiggins, Butler, even Teague and Rose) didn't box out Capela and keep him away from the rim at all costs because that guy was trying to chase down Harden with no real chance of making his shot harder.

It doesn't come down to any one defender. It's really a systematic challenge. Thibs has to meet it if we're going to make this a series.

Ugh, just a gut wrenching game to watch down the stretch.

For one thing, as is mentioned time again before, during and after this game, don't have KAT guard Capela. They were obviously targeting him. It's funny how in the 2nd half when KAT wasn't guarding Capela, they suddenly stopped putting him in the pick and roll. He had 4 points after scoring 20 in the first!

I would do everything possible to make PJ Tucker beat us. Put KAT on PJ and do whatever is possible to get him to take shots by allowing KAT to sag off him and help on the interior. And yes, that means giving up some open 3's.

Q12543 wrote:

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:Just got done watching. Brutal. We had a chance to steal one with how bad the Rockets played (except Harden and Capela) but we matched their shittiness. Ugh. There's no way they miss this many 3 pointers again in this series.

Quick note. Defending the Capela-Harden pick and roll will be the key to whether we can make this a series. Their 3 point shots will either fall or they won't, but they just brutalized us on that Harden-Capela pick and roll, especially in the first half. Harden is so freaking good at deciding whether to shoot or toss up the alley-oop, and even if he doesn't draw the foul and misses the shot, Capela crashes the glass and gets the putback so often.

So what's the solution?

I'm not sure, but I think we have GOT to box out Capela after the pick and have the other guy commit to stopping Harden. There has to be absolutely clear communication on who will do what, and those guys have to commit. So many times tonight we got screwed on that. It was usually Towns who either hesitated to commit to defending Harden because he was afraid of the pass or it didn't matter because the other guy (sometimes Wiggins, Butler, even Teague and Rose) didn't box out Capela and keep him away from the rim at all costs because that guy was trying to chase down Harden with no real chance of making his shot harder.

It doesn't come down to any one defender. It's really a systematic challenge. Thibs has to meet it if we're going to make this a series.

Ugh, just a gut wrenching game to watch down the stretch.

For one thing, as is mentioned time again before, during and after this game, don't have KAT guard Capela. They were obviously targeting him. It's funny how in the 2nd half when KAT wasn't guarding Capela, they suddenly stopped putting him in the pick and roll. He had 4 points after scoring 20 in the first!

I would do everything possible to make PJ Tucker beat us. Put KAT on PJ and do whatever is possible to get him to take shots by allowing KAT to sag off him and help on the interior. And yes, that means giving up some open 3's.

Will Ryan Anderson be back though?

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:Just got done watching. Brutal. We had a chance to steal one with how bad the Rockets played (except Harden and Capela) but we matched their shittiness. Ugh. There's no way they miss this many 3 pointers again in this series.

Quick note. Defending the Capela-Harden pick and roll will be the key to whether we can make this a series. Their 3 point shots will either fall or they won't, but they just brutalized us on that Harden-Capela pick and roll, especially in the first half. Harden is so freaking good at deciding whether to shoot or toss up the alley-oop, and even if he doesn't draw the foul and misses the shot, Capela crashes the glass and gets the putback so often.

So what's the solution?

I'm not sure, but I think we have GOT to box out Capela after the pick and have the other guy commit to stopping Harden. There has to be absolutely clear communication on who will do what, and those guys have to commit. So many times tonight we got screwed on that. It was usually Towns who either hesitated to commit to defending Harden because he was afraid of the pass or it didn't matter because the other guy (sometimes Wiggins, Butler, even Teague and Rose) didn't box out Capela and keep him away from the rim at all costs because that guy was trying to chase down Harden with no real chance of making his shot harder.

It doesn't come down to any one defender. It's really a systematic challenge. Thibs has to meet it if we're going to make this a series.

Ugh, just a gut wrenching game to watch down the stretch.

For one thing, as is mentioned time again before, during and after this game, don't have KAT guard Capela. They were obviously targeting him. It's funny how in the 2nd half when KAT wasn't guarding Capela, they suddenly stopped putting him in the pick and roll. He had 4 points after scoring 20 in the first!

I would do everything possible to make PJ Tucker beat us. Put KAT on PJ and do whatever is possible to get him to take shots by allowing KAT to sag off him and help on the interior. And yes, that means giving up some open 3's.

Will Ryan Anderson be back though?

Yeah, he's trouble. If you swap out Anderson for Tucker, I'd go like this:

Harden - Butler
Paul - Wiggins
Ariza - KAT
Anderson - Teague
Capela - Gibson

Switch everything between Harden/Paul/Capela/Anderson on picks. Paul/Harden and Ariza, KAT would need to hedge and recover back to Ariza. That's the only one I don't switch on.

Thibs would never put Teague on Anderson, but that's the kind of shit I think you need to do to have any chance. And why run pick and pop with Anderson if you just don't bother trying to hedge it and simply switch Teague onto Harden and Butler onto Anderson?

This is all about moral victories. To me, preventing Anderson from freakin' going off on us with a gazillion open 3's might be the best moral victory of them all!

Ryan Anderson is likely to be back, but i expect Kat will be guarding him if he starts or Belly if he comes off the bench.

I think we are dismissing some things when talking about the poor 3pt shooting by Houston. Just because a shot isn't contested doesn't mean we had nothing to do with the shooting. We kept the game close, and made them work on D the entire night. Weaker legs and close contests tend to lower FG%'s.

Houston was shooting about half their shots from 3pt territory through the regular season, versus only shooting 37/83 last night. We also slowed the pace considerably. We also rebounded the ball well at both ends, which helps to slow down the rockets offense and further limit the wide open pull up 3's.

I've said this before, there is a reason why teams PnR G and KAT to death. Neither come out to show and bother the ball handler. Taj, does this , and Belly as well. Most likely due to a lack of comfort for G and KAT, but it is a glaring weakness in our D. Either switch up the match ups, or double team off the weak-side. Some thought KAT was sitting in the paint forcing Harden to take long 2's. The problem with that approach is he is now coming down hill on our two weakest defenders, which is suicide.

While Houston will likely shoot better, so will KAT and Butler. I think with a few adjustments (not likley with Thibs unfortunately) we can continue to keep close and maybe still a game.