Minnesota Sports Forum

I missed tonight's game and I'm happy about that. Not sure I'll even watch the DVD. The defense has definitely regressed and the offense continues to sputter.

Jon K tweeted the following interesting comment Ant made to KAT. Edwards to KAT: "You can shoot the ball, u can handle the ball, u got touch, everything. They can't guard you, breh. If he just stop waiting on the double team, we would be a way better team. Because you can't double him. And then you gotta double on the catch. Now it's better"


Ant is absolutely right. My single biggest problem with KAT over the years has been his failure to attack quickly before the double team comes. Instead, he holds the ball and holds the ball, making himself a really easy, predictable target for a double team. We've all wanted his defense to improve and it actually has improved significantly the last couple seasons. But he should be scoring a lot more. Truth is, he doesn't take full advantage of his amazing offensive skill set for a player his size. He just doesn't shoot enough. A look at tonight's box scores is revealing. KAT took 11 shots with 4 free-throw attempts. In contrast, Jokic took 23 shots with 9 free-throw attempts while Embiid took 17 shots with 19 free-throw attempts. Even Vucevic took 23 shots tonight. John Randle took 18 shots. It's pathetic that KAT took only 11 shots tonight, especially with DLO not playing.

lipoli390 wrote:I missed tonight's game and I'm happy about that. Not sure I'll even watch the DVD. The defense has definitely regressed and the offense continues to sputter.

Jon K tweeted the following interesting comment Ant made to KAT. Edwards to KAT: "You can shoot the ball, u can handle the ball, u got touch, everything. They can't guard you, breh. If he just stop waiting on the double team, we would be a way better team. Because you can't double him. And then you gotta double on the catch. Now it's better"


Ant is absolutely right. My single biggest problem with KAT over the years has been his failure to attack quickly before the double team comes. Instead, he holds the ball and holds the ball, making himself a really easy, predictable target for a double team. We've all wanted his defense to improve and it actually has improved significantly the last couple seasons. But he should be scoring a lot more. Truth is, he doesn't take full advantage of his amazing offensive skill set for a player his size. He just doesn't shoot enough. A look at tonight's box scores is revealing. KAT took 11 shots with 4 free-throw attempts. In contrast, Jokic took 23 shots with 9 free-throw attempts while Embiid took 17 shots with 19 free-throw attempts. Even Vucevic took 23 shots tonight. John Randle took 18 shots. It's pathetic that KAT took only 11 shots tonight, especially with DLO not playing.

The thing what has killed him his whole career is he is to slow to make a decision and he has not learned how to play offense without fouling.

I do think he gets a bad rap at time from the officials but he is just so out of control at times.

*I will say the 1st 3ish Q are worth a watch.

kekgeek1 wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:I missed tonight's game and I'm happy about that. Not sure I'll even watch the DVD. The defense has definitely regressed and the offense continues to sputter.

Jon K tweeted the following interesting comment Ant made to KAT. Edwards to KAT: "You can shoot the ball, u can handle the ball, u got touch, everything. They can't guard you, breh. If he just stop waiting on the double team, we would be a way better team. Because you can't double him. And then you gotta double on the catch. Now it's better"


Ant is absolutely right. My single biggest problem with KAT over the years has been his failure to attack quickly before the double team comes. Instead, he holds the ball and holds the ball, making himself a really easy, predictable target for a double team. We've all wanted his defense to improve and it actually has improved significantly the last couple seasons. But he should be scoring a lot more. Truth is, he doesn't take full advantage of his amazing offensive skill set for a player his size. He just doesn't shoot enough. A look at tonight's box scores is revealing. KAT took 11 shots with 4 free-throw attempts. In contrast, Jokic took 23 shots with 9 free-throw attempts while Embiid took 17 shots with 19 free-throw attempts. Even Vucevic took 23 shots tonight. John Randle took 18 shots. It's pathetic that KAT took only 11 shots tonight, especially with DLO not playing.

The thing what has killed him his whole career is he is to slow to make a decision and he has not learned how to play offense without fouling.

I do think he gets a bad rap at time from the officials but he is just so out of control at times.

*I will say the 1st 3ish Q are worth a watch.

I agree, kek. The first three quarters were very entertaining, but the 4th was a disaster. No shame here, because the Jazz are an elite team that has won 5 in a row. Their starting five is terrific, but just look at the gap between the two benches. Their top three reserves are Ingles, Clarkson and Gay. Ours are Beasley, Jaden and Naz.

But we need to address Lip's comments about KAT above, because they were on display tonight. Utah elected to guard him all night with....Bojan Bogdonovic! Not exactly Ben Simmons on defense. But until the game was essentially over and KAT went into stat stuffing mode, he was absent on offense. Sure, Gobert is always lurking when KAT gets the ball, but to Lip and Kek's point, KAT's instincts are slow. He clearly needs to act before the double team comes, because he simply isn't very good against double teams...neither scoring nor finding the open man.

So now we get the resurgent Cavs coming off a 23-point win over the Bulls. It won't get any easier for KAT facing the Mobley/Allen twin towers. I don't normally say this with the season not even half over, but I think Friday night is a must win if this team wants to challenge for a play-in spot.

The main thing was I thought we were poor in plan and execution in pulling Gobert out of the paint. Finch mentioned in the postgame how they never called 3 seconds on him, which I'm sure was violated multiple times. But if he's going to sit in the paint then someone should be open on the 3P line.

We don't at times have the personnel who can punish them though too, little bit of both I think.

Basically driving into Gobert is a low percentage play, so we needed to pull him out to open it up. We couldn't and our offense sputtered.

Truthfully, this was a game that highlighted Minnesota's weakness on the wing. Utah has a number of two-way wings that are versatile with size. Look at the Wolves. There's Anthony Edwards and then a group of inconsistent wildcards. Had they collectively shown up this game would have remained closer through the fourth quarter.

This loss is far from a back-breaker, though. The Jazz are a legitimate contender and the Wolves are not. These games should be expected to go in Utah's favor. I expected Minnesota to lose three of their last four with a win against Atlanta or Washington. That obviously didn't happen.

Looking forward, the Wolves have six very winnable games ahead of them before facing the Jazz again. This is a stretch where they need to pile up some wins. Hopefully, D'Angelo Russell can get back on the floor within the next couple of games and provide a significant boost.